Tessellate
by Tzitzimime
Summary: Alfred F. Jones, recent high school graduate and romantic failure, has never been more shocked than when his mother puts a certain widely-published abuse case into his care for an indefinite amount of time. It goes without saying, neither Alfred nor this poor Brit have any aspirations to become friends. But, getting himself into social messes is Alfred's speciality… (USUK)
1. Chapter 1

_So I decided to stop being such a serious grump and write a more crack-ish drama-type thingy that would just be a nice break from writing about prison camps and whatnot._

_So here it is… I based the title off one of my favourite songs because I guess the lyrics kind of relate to what will happen and what has happened already to Alfred and Arthur blah blah blah_

_Please don't take this fanfiction seriously I am honestly just playing around with trying to be funny._

_Review this if you liked it and want me to continue, if there aren't any reviews then I shall go back to writing about prison camps and that'll be the end of that._

_Take everything I write with a generous pinch of salt I try not to be cruel but it's hard .n._

_Also I am not making assumptions about people in different situations I am writing from the point of view of a character and creating characters of my own that fit this kind of story okay?_

_Ok sorry this chapter is sentimental but I promise it won't stay like this._

_- __Tzitzimime _

The story had hit the papers just a year ago.

There had been the controversy, the _'how can this ever have happened'_ that the public tends to do when the word 'controversy' is put into a headline. There was immediate response, and on every news channel in the country there had been experts and politicians and nobodies off the street talking about how dreadful the whole thing had been. There had been documentaries, on-going stories and even charities set up to help, but of course, not one of them contained the tiniest shred of truth. Even the pictures and interviews showed an actor, and the stories that were issued every once in a while to rile the public up again were purely the product of the writer's minds. This was mainly due to the fact that the subject of controversy had been less than willing to talk to the papers.

He had sat in his designated room in the orphanage for most of the time the press had been barking at the door, claiming he didn't care what they had to say and that they should just get out of his face and leave him well enough alone. He didn't want this, he hadn't wanted this, and he already stuck out like a sore English thumb in the orphanage because he was the only kid there who _actually had parents_.

Yeah, but parents that didn't want him.

The stories about the bruises on his face, his arms, his legs, _had_ been blown up a considerable amount by the papers, but they still contains shreds of truth. Talking or even thinking about it made his arms flare up in pain again, and his therapist often sat stunned after a session of asking him questions until he had exploded and fled the room in a fit of anger. It didn't make him upset, he knew how little crying solved things, but it just made him so _furious._ Why should he have to sit there and listen to a personification of the newspaper articles tell him about how tough his ordeal had been? Yes, it had been tough. Yes, he had hated every moment of it with his entire being. But it had _happened_. It no longer happened, his parents were unable to hit him from behind a prison sentence, he would no longer be covered in so many awful bruises. He wanted to be brisk with this. The past had passed, and there was nothing he could do to change it, even if he wished as he once had.

To be fair, the Arthur Kirkland Abuse Case had not been that controversial.

It was simply just another lower class family struggling to keep finances and tempers in check. His mother had been the weak but hot-headed housewife, and his father the long-time alcoholic, prone to fits of often predictable rage and violence. Arthur had often wondered with cruel curiosity why his mother hadn't seen it coming just from the way he walked through the door in the evening, but he had never been in a position to object or make a point on their behalf. It had been made very clear since the time Arthur had been able to string words together; he was the child, and they were the adults. They knew best about everything, and he was the scrawny, stupid rat who just had to stay out of the way.

It was funny that they weren't even _his parents._

Arthur, nearly straight after his appearance into the world as a newspaper sensation, had been thrust into the arms of a different orphanage and left to scream for a few months, until he was selected like a cola bottle into a pick n mix bag into a new, welcoming family three years later. It had been obvious, even at that age, that they had only wanted him out of a primal sort of urge, and neither parent really had much of a clue about rearing their own young. It was just as well they left him alone the majority of the time, otherwise Arthur was certain he'd probably have ended up in jail instead of them.

As his adoptive parents had utterly no idea how to deal with a relatively quiet seven year old, Arthur was mostly left to his own devices. From what they saw of him when they collected him from the school he'd been immediately enrolled in to keep him out of the house, he had been a near-silent, observant type, and had mainly spent his day reading and staring into space. He had been curious about the world, as all children were, but in the less conventional sense. Instead of seeing, say, a small caterpillar, and putting it straight in his mouth as the common or garden three year old takes pleasure in doing, he would stare at it intently until he lost interest or the article in question moved from his range of sight. His parents found it odd, his lack of kinetic interest with the world around him, but they prioritised many more things than the habits of their new son.

This particular habit hadn't changed for thirteen years.

There he sat, in the dingy little office plastered with smiling faces that were screaming at him to 'feel better', barely covering up the egg-yolk-yellow walls that were so badly painted he didn't think the slackers in his art class could do any worse, staring fixedly at his current subject of interest. Well, not _interest, _per se, as he had no mild urge to feel intrigued about the person sat opposite him, but there was enough of a feeling akin to that which made the ordeal a little less tedious. Unlike other poor souls who had sat in the same chair as he, Arthur's legs were crossed, his back was straight, and he was looking at the woman on the other side of the table as if he was the one asking the questions. If anything could be assumed about Arthur Kirkland, it was that he composed himself like a gentleman.

"So, did you have a nice weekend?" Blatantly read from the clipboard balanced on her knees, the question didn't take him by surprise. It was a routine now, and he would repeat his lines in monotony when it was his turn to speak. Taking turns to speak was very important; one interruption, one slight interjection, and the jar of pills would suddenly increase in number. Arthur knew how it worked, after all this time, how couldn't he?

"Did _you _have a nice weekend?" Asking an interrogator their own questions was amusing; he'd like to see her jump _that _hurdle. She'd managed to make him talk, which had been a challenge considering he rarely talked to anyone, so now she was going to have to work for an answer she could jot down on that clipboard of hers.

The normal woman he had was off having her own vile children, so Arthur had been unceremoniously dumped on the new girl. Despite his celebrity status, he was still stuck with the clean-faced-matching-shoes-and-blouse trainee like a temperamental thirteen year old with mild anger problems. Arthur was so flattered they cared about him so much, but he could tell something was different about this little chat. What was different? He didn't know, but he'd bide his time as he did with everyone, and would wait patiently until she delivered the answer to his doorstep.

"Now now, Arthur, you're not the one holding the clipboard." A 'now, now' was as effective on Arthur as 'don't eat that off the floor' is to a toddler.

"I asked you a question, it's only polite to provide an answer." If his normal questioner was here instead of this amateur, Arthur would have received a firm scolding. Instead, he was graced with a nervous smile and a flick of that all-too-obviously bleached hair. Arthur had never understood why some women bleached their hair even though it was _already blonde_, but what did he know about what happened in other people's heads? Nothing, that's what, nothing at all.

"Well, I suppose so, if you put it like that." Arthur almost let himself smile. _Suppose_ was a fatal word for any psychiatrist. Psychiatrists don't _suppose_, they just _know_. They exist to tell people what is going on in their heads, not to _suppose _ideas and petty questions about the opinion on one's weekend.

"So did you have a nice weekend?"

"Yes, Arthur, I did," She almost seemed to lose her train of thought. "Thank you."

"That's good," He replied, all the while keeping those eyes fixed on her. She was a curious one, he had to admit, all smiles and B's and C's from college, but bright-eyed nonetheless. "I _suppose _my weekend was also nice, thank you for asking."

"Do you always beat around the bush like this?"

"I thought these sessions were meant to make me feel better about myself."

The comment hit home, and papers were shuffled and re-ordered as if her script had somehow been altered by what he had said. He _supposed _he had caught her off guard. Apparently, abuse-ridden orphans were meant to be sad little sods that needed all the love and support that counselling and child benefits could offer in order to be brave enough to face the world again. Not Arthur. Although his staring habits had been strange and silent, he was bloody good at putting up a fight, if he did say so himself. Every slap, every kick, had been met with flushes of anger, not sadness. How _dare _they push him around like a dog, how _dare _they select him like a discounted soup can and then leave him to gather dust and bruises in the cupboard. Arthur Kirkland wasn't scared of anyone.

"Sorry, we'll just get started, shall we?" The older woman who normally coached him through these sessions would have laughed and put his remark down as nothing of relevance or reason, but the trainee's heart had not accustomed to the hardships of talking to kids about their problems. No sixteen year old ever poured his heart out about his deepest, darkest thoughts just like that, they would play games until the ball was in their court, so to speak. And for Arthur, the ball had been in the goal from the start. This woman wasn't getting anything out of him; nothing at all.

"That's a good idea, eight minutes have already gone." He loved counting down the half-hour until all the time had been spent faffing over nonsense, then he would get up and leave, not saying another word.

"Yes, I see, so, do you," She stopped, and Arthur's eyes watched her makeup-caked ones flicked down to her clipboard. _Amateur. _"You've not been approached by anyone in the children's home yet?"

"Certainly not, child safety regulations call for a-"

"I meant as in potential parents, Arthur." She obviously had more resilience than he had first assumed. This was going to be fun.

"I'll have to say no to that as well, it's rather unfortunate."

She laughed. A _titter_, you could call it, a forced chime of a laugh that was clinical and so obviously wrong that Arthur could never take it seriously. "That's not true, I'm sure there's lots of mothers and fathers looking for a charming fifteen year old such as yourself."

Arthur bristled, but didn't show his irritation at the age mistake. It was because he was _short_, he knew, but apparently, according to the ADHD-suffering boy who always had appointments after his, stress could stunt growth by up to 40%. Clearly the counselling wasn't working then; he hadn't grown since he was thirteen.

"I agree. I honestly couldn't see why someone wouldn't want an arsy teenager with a record of abuse and delightful social motives."

"Someone does." She replied, and Arthur was gearing himself up for the 'there's a mummy and daddy out there for everyone' talk, getting ready to melt into his subconscious and remain dormant until she stopped talking. Of course there wasn't someone bloody out there for him, his opportunity to present himself as a cute individual had petered out by the time he was five, and even then his nose was already buried in a book and he referred to his less literate peers as 'bloody pooheads'. No-one wanted Arthur Kirkland, and he was pretty much okay with that. The orphanage wasn't bad; he could still go to school and get into a decent college, and then he'd be out and in his own house where he could languish for thirty years and develop homicidal needs. His life was going to turn out just fine without any governing figures getting in his way, and didn't need anyone.

"I think even if you wrapped me in gift wrap and tied a ribbon to my-"

"What I meant was that someone wants to take you in." That was the second interruption in the past five minutes, and Arthur hadn't even used a 'naughty word.'

Arthur took a moment to compose himself, then answered with the ghost of a smile. "And who may this be? Another suffering alcoholic and his mouse of a wife? Can't wait to visit them, it'll be a _whole _new experience."

"Actually," The papers were ruffled again, and so were Arthur's feathers. Not much interest was ever paid to him and his tragic story save those ruddy papers, so this was proving difficult to play around. The game was becoming more difficult to endure; especially now he knew that round, sympathetic face now held behind it a devious player itself. But, as they always said, it takes two to tango. "It's just a mother, and her son I think."

"She has a son already, why would she want another one?"

"He's nineteen, he just left high school," Arthur groaned. Post-graduates were insufferable pricks. "And his mother wants him to have a brother to look after."

"Surely she knows what she has to do in order to create a brand new child of her own," Arthur said sourly. "Rather than picking from the 'reduced' aisle of children."

The counsellor fixed him with a look that he could only describe as failed sympathy and just sickly patronisation. "It doesn't always work like that Arthur."

"She has to have ulterior motives, no sane mother's going to turn up on the doorstep of this pile of junk and put in an order for Mr Fuck-Up of the Year."

An eyebrow was raised at his somewhat unsavoury language, but he didn't care. He was confused, as well as angry, and he was bored of playing this game. He didn't want a new mummy to cook his dinners with a new brother to play hide and seek with; he wanted to be by himself in his little room and live his life like that.

"She seems really nice…"

"Trust me, they all do."

"No, trust _me_, this'll be really good for you, it'll help you make friends."

"I don't want to make friends with some stuck up brat who's just graduated from big boy school." Arthur knew he sounded three years old, but some things just don't change.

"He sounds like a very well-mannered young man, and he has his own flat so you'll be staying with him there."

"So mummy comes to see her babies every weekend or something?"

She smiled, and Arthur was contemplating vomiting onto that clipboard of hers, just to see if that would get rid of her smile. "Something like that."

His eyebrow twitched. "Quaint."

"The ladies at the orphanage, as well as myself, would like you to give this a try. You can still come and see us every week as usual, and maybe you can bring your new brother along with you."

"What, and snivel to him and expect him to hand me tissues and journalist's microphones like you all do?"

"Arthur," Her voice grew slightly sterner, but Arthur's contempt just grew. "You have to try and get yourself out there, otherwise you'll be stuck in that little room of yours your whole life. You're _sixteen_; you should be going out every night with your friends,"

Arthur snorted. "Hah, not likely."

"You could be going to a baseball game with your new brother,"

"Cricket is better."

"You could get a nice little girlfriend to-"

"Okay," Arthur sighed. "We're done with the 'could' and 'should'; I may as well meet them for a little chat."

The clipboard was forsaken, and she looked at him curiously. "Really? You would be able to do that?"

Arthur could do anything. It was whether he wanted to or not that dictated whether he ended up in prison or not. "_Easy is the descent into Hell._" He muttered, crossing his arms and finally looking away from the woman.

"You've been reading those books again." Her voice had a teasing tone, but he didn't care. There were more fascinations in those books than there had been F's in her exams, so he didn't mind too much about what _she _had to say.

"Indeed, I like comparing the descriptions of the Inferno to this real life business."

"You're the devil, Arthur."

He blinked, and looked away from her for the first time, his lips quirking up a little around the edges. "I try."

"Well," The counsellor looked up at the clock, suddenly realising they were ten minutes over time. She fussed about with her papers, arranging them over and over again before she heaved herself out of the uncomfortable plastic seat and stood up to usher Arthur out. "You'd better get going; don't want to waste any more of your afternoon."

Arthur, on the other hand, took his time with standing up and composing himself. "Yes, thank you for your time; I'll see you next week."

She smiled that knowing smile adults did too often for his liking. "I'll be giving Mrs Jones a call as well, and tell her you're in."

He jerked his lips up in a grimace akin to a smile, and left the small office where, every Tuesday, he poured out his life story to overly sympathetic women. "Of course, if she'll still have me."

Oddly enough, it was the son who wanted him most.

Well, _eventually._

_Sorry it's quite a slow first chapter, but I promise there'll be a new chapter soon!  
Please review this chapter, I really want to hear your opinions._


	2. Chapter 2

_Wow guys… thank you so much for all your enthusiasm for this story already, I got reviews in the first hour, thank you!_

_I got a question about whether this was actually crack or not- I think crack was a bit of an outlandish term to put it under, but it's certainly more light-hearted than the other fanfics I'm currently writing._

_So… Alfred and Arthur meet in this one, and let's just say they get off on the wrong foot in a variety of different ways._

_I kind of picture Arthur as the kind of hot headed teenager who's really minimal on feelings other than total rage, so expect lots of awkwardness in later chapters._

_So glad you liked the first chapter, I don't feel like such a monumental failure…_

_Please review this chapter; otherwise Arthur will turn his rage on you!_

_Just kidding._

He was pretty sure it was going to go downhill from here.

Alfred F. Jones, proud owner of a brand new flat and a completely empty kitchen, began heaping pizza from the night before in a laborious manner onto his plate. Empty pizza boxes covered the worktops as he had gotten bored of trying to cram them into the bin, and random articles of cutlery littered the area around the sink as he had been trying to decide whether a man who lived alone should bother with culinary etiquette. He had decided not, and was eating pizza with his fingers as it was customary for him to do, half-hanging off a stool as he surveyed his new cooking area. His mother would be coming to collect him soon. Some would have taken time to compose themselves; Alfred was trying to eat as much as possible.

It had not been his idea to buy the flat. Alfred would have been more than happy to stay at his mother's house until he was thirty five and beyond, just eating and sleeping and occasionally browsing the web for college courses until he felt so sick of aspiring he'd had to sleep for a good nine hours. He was happy with just waiting for life to throw something appealing into his face, like pizza vouchers or a nice girlfriend as lazy as he was or even a job that didn't involve him having to drag himself around an office building doing errands for people he didn't like. His superiority issue wouldn't allow him to rush around doing things for anyone else; why should he, when he was easily better than they were?

He had good enough grades to scrape it through high school, he'd managed to graduate along with everyone else in his year, and, not being vain or anything, but he was pretty hot. He had cheerleaders prowling by the gym locker room to hand him slips of paper with their numbers on, he had been in the basketball team for an impressive amount of time, and, obviously, he'd had _heaps _of friends.

Yet somehow, he was still not good enough.

Alfred had the blessing and curse of a single mother, and every day when he had come home from school, he'd been interrogated until she knew every detail of every lesson, and if she thought he was lying, well, let's just say Alfred's friends wouldn't see much of him that weekend. He'd once supposed that she had a point, and that he was going to have to play the game to her rules if he wanted to get through school in one piece in order to get himself into a good college. He'd guessed that she knew what it was like to grow up; yes, she was _old_, yes, she was a _girl_, but arguing with women wasn't something Alfred was particularly skilled or experienced at. He'd gone along with it, happy as anyone, until he'd started to study for his exams. The ordeal, in Alfred's eyes, had been harrowing to say the least, as revision cards and pages of mock questions were flung at him every evening when he came home from school. He'd tried, and she'd tried harder, but in the end he was only just managing to scrape the grades he needed to get into the nearest community college. Needless to say, a mother with dreams of Harvard and Cambridge was none too pleased with Alfred's final grades.

Then there had been the flat.

The flat was in a large council block that was more of a youth prison than accommodation, and even Basketball Team Alfred looked over his shoulder every so often just to check there wasn't a knife sticking out of it. His mother had insisted he bought it with the money he had left over from paying the rent at _her _house from his job at a nearby café, and he had vehemently disagreed until the final day she let him live in her house. He'd had to pack his own cardboard boxes with the random items he possessed, load them into the truck, spend an hour having awkward conversation with the driver of the truck, and then find his flat in the whitewashed chaos he was presented with as a home. Apparently it was part of the 'Make Alfred a Man' scheme his mother and her friend had drawn up, and that he would be visited every Saturday to check how he was doing, and that would be the end of that. Alfred had spent the first week at a friend's house, leaving the flat to gather dust and potential squatters, until his mother found out and he was forced to stay in there for _two whole weeks _without going to see anyone. It was funny how grounding him still seemed to work even though he had his own house to be grounded in. When Mrs Jones tells her son to do something, he jolly well does it; otherwise the only meals he'll be getting will be out of a can.

And now this.

Alfred had always relished in being an only child; he'd seen how badly the other kids in school coping with having disgusting younger siblings puking their way around their bedrooms, and he had laughed and laughed at their misery for most of his schooling career. It had been nice, just him and his mother; he'd get home before her and slob around until she came back at which he would pretend to do homework, she would take him out to places for dinner if she couldn't be bothered to cook, and if he wanted something, within reason, she'd give it to him. Take away the nagging about grades and the snoring (Alfred didn't know he had inherited this wonderful trait), and his mother was a pretty swell parent to have. Which was why he had objected to this so much, and why he was still grovelling and complaining on the way to the children's home.

"You've got to be kidding me; I'm not going to see some squirt who wants to share my bed."

She gave him a stern look, hoisting her handbag a little higher onto her shoulder, and shook her head. "No can do, Alfred, I've signed everything, he'll be moving in some time in the next fortnight."

Alfred slumped his shoulders and groaned, nearly thumping the baby-blue walls of the children's home as they entered the reception. "I can't believe you didn't _tell_ me about this, mom, this is stupid."

His mother smiled at the receptionist, who gave Alfred a warm look to which he ignored completely, and continued whining to his parent. "Wouldn't you want a nice, loving family to go and live with if you were in his position?"

"No."

"No?"

"I wouldn't live with me." Alfred was refusing to be reasoned with. He didn't care.

"Alfie, don't say silly things like that, you need to be more sensitive about these issues. Say something like that to Arthur, and he could get very upset." She knew she was fighting a losing battle with her son, but she may as well try. It was funny, seeing him getting all worked up about something like this.

It seemed these conversations would persist for the remainder of the journey to the boy's room.

Outside the lift:

"I don't see why he couldn't just go live with you; you're a much better parent than me."

"I recall that yesterday you were telling me you wanted to name your child Hero and turn him into Superman."

"Geez, mom, take a joke."

"Take this opportunity."

"No."

In the lift:

"Where's his room."

"Fifth floor."

"How long's it take to get there."

"Alfred, I-"

"How long."

"Five minutes."

"How long does it take to choke yourself to death?"

"_Alfred_."

On the fifth floor landing:

"I thought Hell was meant to be warmer."

"Alfred, I swear I will swap you with him and see if _you _ever get adopted."

"I'm an adult, you can't adopt adults."

"There's the black market."

Halfway down the corridor:

"I want to die."

"No you don't."

"How'd you know."

"Pizza's for dinner."

"I hate you."

Presently:

"What kind of a name is Arthur anyway? Are you sure we're going to visit a kid, and that this isn't an old people's home?"

"_Alfred._"

He gave her a reproachful look and huffed, sticking his hands in his pockets. He didn't want this to happen. He didn't _need _this to happen. He had enough issues to sort out without some kid messing his flat around.

"What?" He protested, ambling along behind her, dragging his feet on the lino. "If he's another Kevin Khatchadourian, I'm moving to Jamaica."

She sighed, coming to stand by a plain, white-painted door. "You shouldn't be reading those kinds of books; they're giving you the wrong idea about the real world."

Alfred hadn't actually read the book. He'd watched the film instead. "You say that about everything, even Halo, and that's not even based on a true story."

Mrs Jones didn't reply, and just knocked on the door, waiting with a straight back and face for the habitant to open it. She seemed relatively calm, which irritated Alfred, because his heart was going and his palms were clammy, and his fight-or-flight instinct was firmly set on running away as fast as he could. His mother stood there; silent, impassive, not taking a second glance at her son's downturned mouth or his hunched shoulders, just waiting for the door to be opened. Alfred took the hint and stood a little straighter, staring dead ahead as he forced himself to be patient.

The door was putting him off though.

Unlike the other doors down this particularly sickly-painted corridor, this one was plainly painted in white. The other doors to other children's rooms were slapped with a myriad of rainbow colours, some so badly painted they looked as if they had been done by the children themselves, and it irked Alfred that this one was just white. Maybe they hadn't got round to painting his door yet? Maybe he didn't like colours? Maybe Alfred was about to be greeted by a high-security vault in which an orange-jumpsuited youth was twirling a knife between his remaining fingers? Alfred was not having fun with the possibilities running through his mind, but he was looking forward to his mother pulling out of the decision when she saw just how awful this delinquent was. That was if they came out of here alive, Alfred was already looking for an escape-

The door opened.

Alfred's gasp was audible.

Instead of a hulking Texan youth criminal with six teeth and a baseball bat with nails stuck in it, they were greeted by a short boy wearing a green jumper and a confused expression. Compared to Alfred's lolling stance and his octopus limbs, this boy was almost demure, and he immediately felt uncomfortable. He was not facing a potential brother he would be able to find detestable; the lad just looked so terribly _vulnerable._ From what Alfred could remember- he wasn't good with faces- the boys' green eyes had been wide and vibrant, compared to his hair which lay dull and listless on top of his head. The jumper hung off him like it was hung on a wire hangar, and his slacks (not jeans) trailed behind him like a wedding train. His face was all angles; all edgy and delicate, whilst Alfred's more rough-cut look was certainly not measurable with a protractor. His mouth, oddly bright against his pasty skin, was curled up into something akin to a smile, but his eyes showed nothing that even faintly resembled happiness. He looked as though he was being faced with eviction rather than induction though.

That all changed in a split second though.

"Good afternoon, you must be Mrs Jones." Another wave of shock hit Alfred square in the face; the polite, obviously _English _accent combined with the hand proffered to his mother was too much for Alfred to bear. He took several steps backwards, hands in his pockets to provide a bored façade, and decided to let 'Mrs Jones' do the talking.

His mother stepped forward, as ever the perfect people person, and shook the boy's hand. "Aren't you a little gentleman?" She kept shaking his hand until the boy pulled his own away, and she looked more thrilled than when Alfred had managed to procure an A from the depths of his English class. "Sorry, sorry, it's nice to meet you; we've had to wait for a long time to get an appointment."

The boy nodded as if he received dozens of potential parents a day. "I apologise for that, tardiness is the norm in this place."

Alfred didn't understand half the words that had come out of his mouth, so he just slouched behind his mother, and waited for it all to be over.

"You're such a polite boy; I hadn't been expecting all this courtesy." Now she was just gushing with compliments. Maybe she'd been saving them for all the times Alfred had done something well, and had somehow found lots in excess.

"I can talk like an inbred psychopath if you'd rather, I've had plenty of time to learn how to."

Alfred blinked in surprise. Hadn't that been a little cold for a sixteen year old orphan?

He was getting ready to interject when his mother laughed. It was less of a giggle than a _coo_, a little noise of endearment that made Alfred want to turn into an inbred psychopath. "Well I promise there won't be any of those for you to copy from now," She said, and Alfred was weighing up the odds of pretending to have a small heart attack. That'd get her back on track for sure. Or not; from how much she seemed to love this Arthur kid, he wouldn't be surprised if she just left him convulsing on the floor until they were done with cooing and shaking hands. "Can we come in?"

"Certainly, I apologise for the mess." The Arthur kid turned and went back into his room, leaving a couple of seconds for Mrs Jones to turn to her son with an excited expression.

"Isn't he great?" She hissed, clutching her bag excitedly.

"And I'm an inbred psychopath."

"Don't be such a spoilsport, look how hard he's trying to impress us." She poked his arm, and he stepped away from her with another grumble.

"I'd have preferred acrobatics and sword juggling, to be honest."

She didn't answer him, and entered the boy's room, looking around it with an 'oh' sort of expression. Alfred sidled in a moment later, took the opportunity to lean himself against the wall by the door, and left the talking to his mother. If he didn't contribute anything, the boy would just continue to not notice him and everything would turn out just-

"Would you like a chair?"

A quiet, measured question sent Alfred's head snapping up with more of a shocked expression than he had intended. "Huh?" He blurted without thinking.

If the boy had been smiling earlier, this was definitely a grimace. That cold look had returned to his eyes, and Alfred was not overly sure if that was a good thing or not. It wasn't We-Need-To-Talk-About-Kevin cold, or at least Alfred was trying to pretend it wasn't, but it was still ever so slightly disconcerting.

"A chair," The boy said in a measured tone, gesturing to Alfred's mother who was already sat down and admiring the awfully plain room. "I thought you might like to sit down while we talk."

"I'm not talking." Alfred said before he could stop himself. His mother turned to him with a surprised look, but he kept his arms folded and his expression bored. "And I'd rather stand."

The boy shrugged, and sat himself down on the chair opposite Alfred's mothers. "Your funeral." He muttered, as if he could already imagine himself at Alfred's graveside, and Alfred rested back against the wall with a sour expression. This better get over and done with quickly; he was trying to think of how many ways he could scare a sixteen year old shitless enough to leave the flat and never return. So far he had only really come up with giant hairy spiders or a massive machine gun, and even that was making him feel a little worried. This Arthur guy was going to be bad news.

"So Arthur," His mother had a thick, sweet tone, and Alfred sighed and hung his head, staring blankly at the floor. "I imagine these past few years have been tough for you."

Arthur made a noise that would've sounded like a chuckle if he hadn't been glaring so pointedly at Alfred. Although he tried not to notice, it was winding Alfred up a little bit. Couldn't the little brat just talk his sweet English talk _without _looking at him like he wanted to carve his heart out and stick it on a pole? "It's been hard, what with all the press and their scribbling, but the years before the children's home were by far the worst."

Alfred was waiting for him to burst into a ballad on his life story, complete with dance routines and cheerleaders, but it didn't happen. Which was a shame, considering he would have come across as a lot less dull and Alfred would have at least gained some humour from this ordeal.

"It sounds terrible," She was gushing again. "But don't worry, Alfred and I would never dream of doing any such things."

"That's a very comforting thought, Mrs Jones."

Another girly laugh, and the attention was turned to Alfred. "Why can't you be all polite and sincere like this, Alfie? You'd be so much more of a pleasure to live with, and I would have thought twice about kicking you out."

Alfred didn't even look up. "Mainly because I'm not a teenage granddad with my hand-shaking and chair offering," He saw Arthur's face darken out of the corner of his eye, and the corner of his mouth curled upwards. "I don't know, maybe you should give me a smack or two and see how eloquent I feel then."

"_Alfred_, that was _much _too far." She barked, turning around to face the unusually calm-looking Arthur. If she had seen him a minute ago; all dark eyes and scowls, she wouldn't have patted his arm and cooed to him like he was a sallow blonde baby bird. "He doesn't mean it, our Alfred likes to joke around a lot, he just doesn't know when to stop sometimes."

He sighed and resumed his staring at the floor, not overly happy that he had let that comment slip. The boy already looked like he was going to kill him and spread his body parts throughout the flat; he could only dream of what was going to come next. Nevertheless, his comment had had its desired effect. Arthur didn't like him one bit. He didn't think it would take much pushing for him to out that himself.

"Anyway, excusing that, what school do you go to Arthur?" She was trying so hard to get things back on track, Alfred almost pitied her. But making that Brit scowl like he'd eaten a lemon had been satisfying to say the least. The only problem was, Alfred didn't know when to stop aggravating a potential volcano.

"Just the comp down the road, it was the only one I could get in to at the time."

Alfred had gone to one of the nicer schools on the other side of town, and the 'comp down the road' was a pretty edgy place as far as schools were concerned. Alfred had no idea where this articulate 'gentleman' would fit amongst that lot of losers.

"Ah, that's too bad; did your parents not have a car?"

"The liquor store is only around the corner, so buying a car wasn't a big issue." Alfred had to admit, the boy had a dry sort of humour. It wasn't something Alfred would laugh at- he preferred people falling over or cats talking like people, but it was better than a monotone introvert who would voice his life story at a moment's notice if you asked him to.

"Sorry for bringing that up again, let's talk about something else." Alfred, along with the appetite and snoring, had also inherited this habit of getting himself into difficult and awkward situations. Needless to say, his mother was a lot better at worming her way out of it than he was. "What do you like to do, Arthur? Do you like to play soccer?"

"I prefer to read." Arthur said in a calm tone, looking up at Alfred as he did so. 'Illiterate pig' was written like an insult all over that smug little angled face, and Alfred's face would have flushed in humiliation if he had not taken the chance to flex his basketball team arms, and look down at his pectoral muscles with a smirk. "I never have got on well with sports."

His mother nodded. "We like to read as well, don't we, Alfred?" Alfred remained mute and gave her a blank look. When a five-second silence had passed, she stood up, prompting Arthur to stand up too, and went to leave the room. "I'll go downstairs to see if there's any more paperwork that needs doing before next week, I'll leave you boys to get to know each other."

At the moment, Alfred's idea of getting to know Arthur involved a baseball bat with nails in it and a very high window, but he kept that urge under control as the short boy approached him. There was no childish vulnerability, no 'please pity me' eyes that just begged for help, not even any sign of a broken mind whatsoever. Arthur looked like a normal sixteen year old, except for the fact that he had his eyes dead fixed on Alfred's and that his sickly sweet smile had totally diminished in the space of about three seconds.

"Ever read Winnie the Pooh?" Although the question wasn't a common or garden malicious sneer, its calm tone annoyed Alfred straight away. Didn't the boy have emotions? In that split second he had insulted him, Alfred had seen a flash of anger, but now it had all gone, and he was back to staring at that blank mask and stony gaze.

"Don't like bears." Alfred muttered, crossing his arms again and keeping his back leant against the wall, staring down at his sneakers.

"Did you ever get past that delightful chapter when poor Pooh gets himself stuck in the honey tree?" Alfred was expecting him to start circling, like a shark stalking a fish. "Or was that a too little tense for you?"

Alfred had never been a Winnie the Pooh sort of child, so he rolled his eyes. He'd forgotten that sixteen year olds were so insufferable. "They all die in the end anyway," He couldn't help but retort, he'd not had this much of a fight since high school. "Zombie apocalypse."

The first time he noticed the Brit's bushy eyebrows was when one of them raised questioningly. "Sounds delightful. I can't imagine why your mother wanted you out of the house."

"Well, buster, you're stuck living with me anyway, so if you'd like a bed to sleep in I suggest you keep it in line." Alfred knew that wasn't going to work. It never used to work on him.

Arthur crossed his arms as well, but he didn't look annoyed. It was like he was playing one big game; he was enjoying this to no end. "You couldn't shout at me if you tried, I don't expect you to make an effort to be a big boy and keep me in line like that."

"You ain't seen nothing yet."

Arthur let out a harsh noise that could have been a laugh. "Try me."

Alfred had certainly not been expecting to be wondering about all the ways in which he could punish a snarky sixteen year old abuse case without pummelling him into the ground with his fists. Be the better man? Who was Alfred kidding, for one he already knew the answer to that, and acting all big and grown up about an argument like this was not in his nature. Good cop bad cop? Alfred wasn't too sure if he actually knew what that meant. Reverse psychology? Sounded good as far as he was concerned.

He tried his best to stand even taller, so that their high difference was exaggerated a little more. The Brit looked like the type to get all hissy about his stature. "Look, you can say whatever you want about me,"

"I was planning to anyway."

"And you can do that annoying little smirk thing and call me stupid as much as you want,"

"Oh good, that's already proving hilarious."

"Just try not to burn the flat down, alright?"

A moment's relish in his newfound power, then Arthur lifted a finger. "On one condition."

"Anything, little _gentleman._"

Arthur visibly bristled at 'little'. "Don't ever, _ever_ call me your brother."

Alfred relaxed. He had been expecting something a little more…sinister.

"Don't call me 'bro', or 'mate', or any other stupid endearment. Don't refer to me as your brother to anyone else; don't even _act _like we're related. I don't want to live with you as much as you don't want me to live with you, so if you stay out of my way, I'll stay out of yours."

Alfred turned to leave, hoping he'd go chase his mother and find out what she was 'signing'. "Sure thing kid, and don't expect me to be cooking anything for you."

"Don't call me kid."

"Don't expect me to cook."

Arthur lifted his chin in a defiant gesture. "I can cook for myself."

"Wow, aren't you a powerhouse of talent, can't wait to see your juggling act."

He snorted, and curled his lip in something between contempt and disgust. "Just because you're another nobody going nowhere special."

Arthur really was a _very angry _teenager. Alfred had certainly never been like that. "Whatever you say, princess; your wish is my command."

The Brit puffed his chest out in anger, seemed to think better of it, then resumed speaking calmly and coyly. "I don't like you all that much."

It was Alfred's turn to let out a dry laugh. "Good."

Arthur stepped up close to him, those cold green eyes glaring daggers straight into his soul. "Stay out of my way."

"You should get that printed onto a t-shirt, it's catchy."

"Your humour is so unfortunately American."

"So what's British humour then? Drinking tea and laughing because some man forgot his top hat?" Alfred was getting a little more wound up now.

"I'm expecting you to bring a bald eagle and a hamburger out from that hideous bomber jacket of yours."

Alfred ran his fingers over the soft brown leather and face pouted. "You're a meanie, Artie."

"Don't call me that, I'm not five years old."

He couldn't help himself, and he snorted. "You look it."

Something changed in those pale features, and something flashed in those eyes that were so sharply trained on him. "I am _not_," He was barely trying to conceal the utter loathing in this voice. "_Short._"

"Said Gimli to Legolas." It was Alfred's turn to smirk.

"Don't flatter yourself; you're more of an Orc than an elf."

Alfred grinned. He thought the boy had no understanding of media whatsoever, given his room and the dull covers of the many books in neat piles beside his bed. "I was being nice with dwarf; I was going to say hobbit."

The Brit gave him a listless smile, which was merely just a baring of teeth. There was no emotion behind it, at least nothing jovial, and it made him look a little sardonic. "You know what they say about guys with big feet."

"Whoa, slow down there Tyrion, that was a little too much wit for this time of day." Arthur didn't get that reference. Alfred just grinned.

"I really dislike you."

"I think saying the Jedi 'really dislike' the Sith is a little bit of an understatement, don't you think?" Alfred knew he had crossed a line with that one, and he prepared himself to either be asked to leave or to receive a well-earned sock in the kisser.

The boy grit his teeth, leaned right up into Alfred's face, and _hissed._ "Get _out._"

Gladly, Alfred whisked himself out of that awfully beige little room and down the corridor, the brightness of those much missed colours making his eyes hurt behind his glasses. His shoulders were tight and hunched in frustration as he punched the button for the lift, loitering idly in the hall as he waited for the dated apparatus to haul itself up to the fifth floor. As much as he loved his mother for all the great things she did for him, leaving him alone in that room with Arthur had not been the best experience of his life. He knew she'd done it on purpose; all the paperwork had already been signed, as she'd told him earlier, so going and waiting in the reception gave the two boys quality time with each other. Alfred wondered if she was assuming they had been having a nice brotherly chat, maybe Arthur showing him his stamp collection or something as equally mundane as that which would match the rest of his persona.

Yeah, except the _anger_.

Alfred had seen it burning in Arthur's eyes as he'd told him to get out; an acid rage that was only just bubbling beneath the surface, waiting for the opportune moment to explode out and dissolve Alfred's big-brother attitude. The way in which he'd spoken to him as well; it was hardly in a manner that befitted the rest of his dull complex. It probably wasn't unnatural for a person in his situation to be a little bit… tetchy, but it irked Alfred more than he would have let on. And not for the obvious reason- he wasn't prepared to nurse Arthur back to mental stability and wait on him hand and foot. Alfred's irritation was a little more selfish. He didn't want to have to look after someone else, and have another human being slob around his house acting like he owned the place. Heck, he didn't even want to look after himself most of the time; eating was tedious and he often did too much of it, sleeping was a luxury he couldn't be bothered with trying to regulate, and getting out of the house was futile unless he was either spending money on himself or working in that stupid café. Needless to say, just Arthur Kirkland's very existence bothered his self-absorbed little soul, and it wasn't going to get any better any time soon.

At least, he thought with amusement, he wouldn't be looking after his 'little brother'.

Arthur's determination to have any sort of attachment to him other than a bathroom was intriguing to say the least. In high school, Alfred had never had to worry about people not wanting to be his friend- he just ignored or punched the people he didn't like- so having a person shoved into his care who so obviously didn't like him was a heavy cross to bear. He didn't like the fact that there would be another person in his _house _who hated him with enough of a passion to curdle milk, and that there would be all too many unfortunate encounters which would start an argument like the one prior to his storming out.

The lift finally rattled to his floor, and Alfred got in and pressed the button to the ground level. He was bored with having to look after someone already, and that had just been him trying to break the ice. The whole notion of looking after some poor unloved orphan who clearly didn't want any of his brotherly affections was tedious, and he couldn't wait to have a mental breakdown and claim he had had enough of it, so he could just dump the boy on his mother and continue living in blissful solitude.

He leaned back against the side of the lift, absently wondering if Arthur would jump down to save him if it jammed and/or if zombies invaded the building. Probably not, he decided, the boy couldn't care less about his situation and whether he even existed or not. Part of him wanted it to stay that way, it would mean Arthur would make a conscious effort to avoid him. But another part willed him to at least talk to the kid again, try to befriend him. He snorted to himself, pushing his hair out of his eyes. Who was he kidding? That Kirkland boy was going to treat him like a ghost, he knew that much anyway. Rubbing his eyes and pushing his glasses up as he did so, he sighed.

He was kind of hoping the lift _would _jam.

_Thanks to all the people who have already taken interest in this story, it means a lot._

_If you would be so awfully kind to leave a review, I will update by Friday!_


	3. Chapter 3

_So I'm back with loads of fresh updates and stuff so don't be mad at me for not updating on whatever Friday it was like I promised._

_So Arthur comes home with Alfred today, and let's just say he's not best pleased with what he's presented with as a home. _

_Can I just say that this idea came from a Neko!England rp I did about a year ago and let me tell you how different this fic would have turned out if I had stuck with being obsessed with dudes with cat ears._

_Lots of sass, lots of bickering, it seems as if they're never going to get on!_

_Please review and stuff, it's hard keeping these babies in character ahsffhdsvhjlc_

_Also, for the record, Bombay Bicycle Club are great._

A week had passed, and Alfred had done even less housework than usual.

The bin was overflowing with pizza boxes and McDonalds wrappers, none of the surfaces had had a good scrub for at least a week, and he was making a conscious effort to leave as many articles of clothing spread around his apartment, leaving just the same pair of jeans for him to wear. His mother had seen it as slobbish behaviour, and had chased him around the kitchen with a wooden spoon when she'd come to visit just to finalise things and he'd been face-down in the carpet covered in half-cooked popcorn. He'd slept even less than normal, so was having to catch up at any opportune moment when he wasn't glued to reruns of the Jeremy Kyle Show or stuffing his face with anything he could find in the fridge that wasn't healthy or out of date. He was down to his last Avengers shirt and pair of well-worn jeans, as the rest of his clothes were strewn around on the floor. It looked like he'd just given up. Owning his own home was difficult enough; preparing it for someone else to share was completely out of the question. Thus, Alfred was trying his best to grime it up as best he could until his brand new roommate arrived. Or… whatever he was.

The arrival of one Arthur Kirkland had been weighing on his mind more than he had let on to his mother. Once he'd gotten home after that awful meeting with the kid, he'd worried and fretted to the point of giving himself stomach ache over issues like bed sharing and bathroom sharing and even _oxygen _sharing- his flat was so small, would there even be enough room for them to breathe? That was before he'd even started thinking about tidying the place up to make it feel a little more welcoming, and when he'd realised that, he had gone into a state of paralysis in which the very idea of cleaning or picking stuff up off the floor was immobilising. Ever since he'd come to the conclusion that he was going to have to make his flat look less like something a grizzly bear would use as a bathroom, and something a little more like a home, he'd just stopped functioning entirely.

But why should he? As far as he was concerned, that Kirkland kid had glared at him like he was a particularly repulsive insect, had insulted him both intellectually and physically, and was downright rude despite his fragile appearance. He wasn't in any position to admit that he'd kind of provoked the boy into saying those things, and he wasn't feeling guilty about saying them. If there was anything he thought Arthur Kirkland deserved, it was a good few nights of sleeping on the floor and a surplus of pizza boxes to wade through if he wanted anything to eat. Though he was already, in his mother's eyes, a broken pony and a Lost Boy, Alfred was determined to break him a little more. Not in an unconventional or unsavoury way, Alfred was certainly not that kind of a guy, he just wanted the Brit to know exactly where his place was, and exactly what he was going to have to do to earn his keep. Alfred wasn't going to have any of this tantrum-type flim-flam about sensitivity or about being a good parent. He would give Arthur what he needed to keep him as a sane individual, but he was going to have to work for it.

He'd already drawn up the list of chores he was going to be expecting Arthur to be doing every day after school- basically everything he didn't want to do for himself multiplied by two. He'd even invented some new jobs- like cleaning the windows, and sorting books into alphabetical order- just to keep him occupied. What he'd learned about sixteen year olds on his panicked trawls through parenting websites was that if they got bored, they would wreak havoc wherever they went. Like the Chihuahua that chews up the sofa cushions when its owners aren't looking, Alfred was certain that Arthur was going to kick up a fuss and destroy the place when he wasn't in the house. And he was determined to stop this from happening.

This Chihuahua, however, was already proving to be a little more than a pain in the backside. His mother had phoned him at seven in the morning, informing him that Arthur would be taking the bus to his flat, and that he knew the address and he had all his bags packed and blah de blah, and had then sharply told him that if there was _any funny business whatsoever _then he would be chopped into small pieces and fed to the cat. Already tired and fed up with Arthur at seven in the morning, Alfred had gone back to sleep and completely forgot about his new responsibilities and even the not-so-empty empty threat, until he had been woken again with another more irritating phone call at quarter to eleven.

So now, drumming his fingers on the wheel and glaring up at the orphanage, Alfred was awaiting Arthur Kirkland's arrival so he could chauffeur him back to his new accommodation. His mother had told him Arthur was to meet him outside the orphanage at twelve o' clock, and that he would have all his bags (which Alfred was betting on were all beige), ready to go back with Alfred to the apartment. Alfred had groaned and complained about using the car and that it was out of petrol and needed servicing and it had been taken by aliens, but none of it had done much good. Even over the phone, his mother had the power to instruct him to do almost anything, and he would do it, regardless of how much he whined about it. When she'd called him to tell him Arthur had suddenly lost his confidence and didn't think he could use the bus to travel _two whole miles_, and that Alfred was going to have to use his battered Ford as Arthur's golden chariot home, he had vehemently refused to the point of breaking down into tears until she'd promised to never cook his meals for him again. With a stiff jaw and a headache from all the shouting, Alfred had angrily driven up to the orphanage and parked as haphazardly as he could on the curb, and was now waiting for the golden princess to make his appearance.

It was now quarter to one.

Sallow little Arthur Kirkland still hadn't poked his pale face out of those doors.

Alfred was beginning to wonder if he'd dropped down dead or something and was just waiting to be discovered by the orphanage staff, or if he'd decided it wasn't worth it and hired a helicopter back to England where he could drink tea and ride on steam trains as much as he wanted. He was fervently hoping that something that happened, something terrible enough to prevent Arthur from coming to live with him, so that Alfred could go home and continue watching box sets until he passed out the following day. Maybe he'd broken his leg, and was begging to be inducted into hospital for months on end, maybe he'd gone to live with Alfred's mother instead, and they were both just playing a trick on him, maybe he—

"Catching flies, are we?" A clipped voice said from the other side of the car window.

As he had been deep in thought, Alfred had slumped in his seat, and his mouth was indeed rather ajar as he invented scenarios in which Arthur was whisked out of his care and onto some other poor soul. Upon realising who the owner of that awfully nasal voice was, he jumped and sat up, already feeling a scowl set into his features. This was exactly the sort of appearance he'd been dreading.

Getting out of the car, he faced the teen who was already smirking at him, and folded his arms. "Is this it?"

Arthur, who was flanked by two duffel bags and an umbrella, narrowed his eyes. "Funnily enough, I didn't have that much to bring."

Looking the Brit up and down with the air of a particularly judgemental schoolgirl, Alfred took in the oversized jumper- this time a slightly different shade of green- and the fitted jeans that were tucked into heavy brown boots. "You got that right."

Gesturing to the car, Arthur returned his comment with a stab of his own. "Who'll be pedalling first?"

Alfred, who had loved that car to bits ever since he'd bought it off a friend, found this more insulting than when Arthur had called him stupid a week ago. "The trunk's big enough to fit a small person, you know." He said with a sly grin.

"I'm not small."

"Just as good then, that there's a little human rights issue with that, otherwise it'd be the bags sitting in the passenger seat."

Arthur seemed to give a dainty sniff, and hefted his bags as if he was trying to imply exactly how heavy they were. "You're holding up the queue." He sneered. "There's plenty of other single men looking to snatch a kid out of a good home."

He got the message, a little baffled as to how Arthur knew he was indeed a lone wolf, and went round and cracked the trunk open to reveal a space that would have indeed fit an Arthur Kirkland. Without making another snarky comment, Arthur dumped his bags in there, laid the umbrella on top as if it had belonged to Tutankhamun, and went to sit in the passenger seat. Alfred got into the driver's side and started the engine as fast as he could; praying that the measly dribble of the engine would drown out any possible conversation starters.

Though, when he was about to pull away into the road, his silence policy dissolved for the sake of a little companionable chit-chat. Despite everything, Alfred needed to get Arthur on his side, so he didn't end up smothering him in his sleep.

"Better do up your belt, kiddo," He said as they stopped at the lights. "Wouldn't want you to get that lovely knit of yours all bloody."

There was a snort from the seat next to him. "It's cashmere, actually. And my belt's already done up."

His attempts were dropping to the ground faster than he was picking them up. "Well, that's good then." He stopped talking, then struck up a conversation his relatives always used to try and get him to pay attention during family gatherings. "How's school, then?"

"Agreeable."

Alfred's best subjects had been the practical ones that had involved shooting balls into hoops. Arthur's certainly weren't. "Got any favourite lessons?"

"Not particularly."

"Anything you're really good at?"

"Not extensively."

"Any cool friends?"

"Not overly."

Alfred was at the point of giving up. He had tried his best to stop being so snide towards Arthur, but he was just throwing it back in his face like it didn't matter. He racked his brains for something he and Arthur would have in common, but nothing sprung to mind. Girls? No, Alfred wasn't one for females, and Arthur didn't look like he'd ever been near a girl in his life. Movies? So far, Arthur had proved he had some knowledge of Middle Earth, but he looked like the type of kid who had all the action figures and could name every Orc on the battlefield, so he forsook that. Music? No kid lived without a soundtrack, maybe that was worth a try.

After a good minute of _really _slow driving, concentrated thinking from Alfred and concentrated scowling from Arthur, he decided to speak up. "So, Arthur," He began tapping his fingers on the wheel in a nonchalant fashion. "What kind of music do you like?"

For the first time during the journey, Arthur actually turned his head and spoke to him directly. His voice was blank, monotone, and entirely emotionless. Alfred almost held his breath in anticipation of his answer, and he prayed it wasn't something morbid like Satanic chants on pipes made from human bone.

"I like the Sex Pistols."

He had been expecting Bach, Mozart, or maybe even as far into modern culture as something bland (to his ears) like Bombay Bicycle Club, but the goddamn _Sex Pistols _was something he couldn't have ever predicted. He remembered his mother singing along to their songs when he was younger, and even recently she'd turfed out her old CDs and wailed along with Sid Vicious as she did his washing, it was a kind of music he was used to. But not a kind of music he particularly liked, or knew much about.

"That's cool," He managed to reply, almost missing a turn under the scrutiny of Arthur's eyes. Honestly, if the guy had ignored him up till now, he was boring holes into his skull and seeing into his soul. "It's rock music, right?"

"_Punk_ rock, actually." The Brit didn't sound annoyed, just like he'd been expecting to be correcting Alfred on something during this journey. "And keep your eyes on the road; you nearly got clipped by that RV."

Why on planet earth did this guy like the _Sex Pistols._

Irritated, Alfred glared at the RV that had in no way nearly clipped them, and waited at another set of lights. Two miles in this part of town always felt longer than it was. He was also beginning to get a little uncomfortable with the fact that Arthur was looking at him in such an intense manner, and he willed for him to stop.

"Man, the _Sex Pistols? _You serious?" Alfred chuckled to himself, but this obviously was annoying Arthur. He didn't look like the kind of kid who could cope with anything bad said against him or the things he liked. Alfred guessed he had good reason to, though.

"What kind of music do _you _like?" Arthur was giving him that so-you-like-rap-music face all the kids at his school used to do, and they would always be more than shocked when he told them the truth.

"Uh, Sinatra, actually."

"Is this a hip new baggy-trousered fellow I should expect to see posters of in your bedroom?"

"Nope," Alfred was wiping that smirk off his face better than his mother cleaned windows. "Actual Sinatra, comma Frank."

"You know, just My Way off an American Anthems album doesn't count." Was Arthur calling him a phoney?

"I could show you all the albums I have," More like pelt them in his face. "There's quite a number."

Another snort. "So Sinatra, not as good as Tom Jones, but then again, we've always had the better music."

"I'm sorry, but what have you Brits done that we haven't?" Oh dear, international issues already. Soon it would be food, then politicians, then women, and they'd just end up decorating their respective halves of the flat with patriotic tat from the tourist shops and pelting teabags and hamburgers at each other.

"What have we done that you haven't copied, you mean?"

Alfred looked triumphantly at his passenger. "Reggae."

"Oh, you like reggae as well as a bit of swing?"

He shifted uncomfortably. "Reggae and I— don't get on."

"Not a fan of the don't-worry-be-happy, are we?"

"Reggae makes me fall asleep."

Arthur made another noise through his noise. "Didn't know you hated it that much."

"I'm serious; reggae knocks me out faster than chloroform on King Kong."

"I'll keep that in mind when I stage my all-night house parties." Conversation done, Arthur resumed his calculative staring at Alfred.

When he didn't relent, and they were nearing their destined block of flats, Alfred finally spoke up. "Could you please… not look at me like that, it's kinda distracting."

Arthur snorted. "Too pretty for you, am I?"

"You're not my type."

"That's not what your mother said."

Alfred gripped the steering wheel a little harder and stepped on the gas pedal a little too firmly than recommended. It was only last year that he had dashed his mother's hopes for grandchildren, and although she'd been as supportive as any good mother would be, she'd had an unhealthy habit for voicing his confession to any person she just happened to know. Alfred didn't even want to know what she'd been telling him, but he could bet that it was something along the lines of his lack of success and her disappointment at him not being a camp house-cleaning ballet dancer type, and rather the lazy house-destroying gaming type.

Just out of curiosity and some form of twisted vanity, he decided to dig a little deeper into this. "What did she say my type was?"

"If I say whip-wielding fetishist, will you crash the car?"

Alfred stiffened. "Only on your side."

"She said you had disappointing tastes in males."

He was getting way too caught up in this already. "Disappointing?"

"Mm, she said you were all about the personality and not about the fabulous face and body all the gay guys she used to inadvertently fancy when she was younger."

He hadn't realised he had been gritting his teeth until he spoke and his words sounded all muffled and choked back. "Nice to hear you two're getting on."

"She also told me not to expect sparkling clean worktops and feather boas, but I'm not ruling them out of the equation."

_I'll give you feather boas, you miserable piece of—_

Alfred wasn't sure whether that was an insult to his preference of amorous companions or his manliness, but it irritated him all the same. "Bet you're a big hit with the ladies."

Arthur looked relaxed as they pulled into the flat's car park, and he leaned back in his seat. "You'd think they'd come running."

"Having girl problems?"

Another snort. "You wouldn't know."

"You'd be surprised what experimenting can teach you." Alfred cut the engine, barely keeping a lid on his rapidly rising annoyance, and got out of the car.

"So plaguing one gender with your amorous persuasions wasn't enough?"

Alfred took his urge to hit the Brit out on the trunk, and wrenched it open so Arthur could heave his bags out and follow him into the block of flats. "Sometimes I did cause damage, but that was just because of the swooning."

Arthur didn't reply to this, and as they got into the lift, Alfred could see him edging further and further away from him. He didn't know if that was because what Alfred's mother had so wonderfully told him, or because of the plain fact that Arthur didn't like him all that much. He was fine with this, it would make it easier for them to avoid each other, but Alfred was planning to get his own back on Arthur after what he'd said.

"Hope you've got a bedroll in that magic bag of yours."

The Brit looked up, and for a moment, Alfred saw confusion. That was, until, his face went blank and he went back to looking like a mug shot. "What do you mean?"

Alfred's lip twitched. "Bed's taken."

Arthur looked up at him with a sort of astounded vehemence. "You mean I'm meant to sleep on the floor?"

He looked around himself in mock disbelief. "Where else are you going to sleep? You're not coming for a cuddle in my bed, and the sofa's much too small for even a kid like you."

Looking revolted, Arthur looked away with a huff. "I don't deserve to be treated like this."

"I can happily show you what you deserve, if you'd like a bit of brotherly guidance." The lift doors slid open and Alfred let Arthur pass.

"You're not my brother."

"Thank goodness, I don't think my mother would have been able to cope with all this talent, know what I mean?"

"Funnily enough, no."

Alfred took the lead, and they walked down a plain corridor until they reached Alfred's apartment.

For the first time in what seemed like forever, Arthur burst out laughing.

Despite the fact his mother was a grown woman and she had more things to worry about than Alfred had fillings, she could be exceedingly immature at times. She'd obviously been experiencing a fit of mischief when she'd bought Alfred the apartment. Alfred had inherited this, and at first the apartment had been funny. Now, as he realised how many odd looks he got from the surrounding apartment owners, and how it had made a seemingly humourless boy choke with laughter, he was beginning to feel the joke wearing out.

However refined and superior Arthur appeared, he was still a teenager at heart. And, as he began to compose himself once more, and his hard eyes went back to glowering at Alfred, little chuckles still escaped as he kept glancing at the door. "Please don't tell me you willingly moved in to apartment number _69._"

Alfred kept his voice monotone. "It was a joke."

Arthur seemed to have found his old self, and he was back to the crescent moon smirks. "Your idea?"

"Mom's."

"My, I wish my parents had done that for me instead of slapping me all the time."

Humiliated, and fuming at himself and his mother, Alfred unlocked the door, staring straight ahead as he spoke. "Prepare yourself for a colour palette that's not completely beige."

"Will I need to hold my breath? Or does your sleeping-on-the-floor service also come with free gas masks?"

Alfred butted the door open with his shoulder and went inside. "It's not that bad."

"Kidding yourself about obvious articles; one of the signs of instability."

Alfred was tempted just to shut the door in Arthur's face and leave him to sleep outside the door, but that would just do more harm than good. Arthur had a sickening knack for sarcasm, and Alfred's head spinning with half-formed retorts and comebacks that would be able to scrape him back just the tiniest shred of dignity, but nothing left his mouth for fear of him sounding like a complete idiot.

"Come in." He managed to say, kicking food wrappers into less visible areas of the room for the sake of preventing Arthur from saying anything snide about them. "Dump your bags somewhere I won't break my ankle on."

There was a muttered "I'd hate that" from Arthur as Alfred went into the kitchen to get a drink. Nothing from the taps was drinkable, and besides, Alfred didn't like water, so he grabbed a can of Coke from the fridge and gulped it gladly. All that talking and glaring and snapping had left Alfred's mouth dry and his head thick with thought, and he was going to his best to prevent both of those things in the future. Sighing and tossing the drained Coke can into the sink, he went back to where Arthur was still stood and looking slightly repulsed.

"I was joking, you know, when I said you were going to have to sleep on the floor, I managed to fit another bed into my room." Alfred went and sat on the sofa, stretching out and looking relaxed. As uncomfortable as Arthur looked and as sorry Alfred felt for him as he knew exactly what teenage awkwardness felt like, he wanted to leave him standing there for as long as possible.

Arthur gave another dainty sniff. "That's almost as bad as sleeping on the floor."

Being grown up and reining his feelings in was not something Alfred was good at. Nevertheless, he gave it a try. "I can always move it if you don't like it."

The teen gave him another sour look. "Maybe you could move it to another house."

He rubbed his eyes under his glasses, the sugar from the Coke not really improving his mood. "I'm trying to be reasonable, Arthur, please try and see this from my point of view."

"You're saying this _after_ you've bickered with me for the entire car journey to your flat and on an earlier occasion deeply offended me with your comments on my upbringing." Arthur seemed to relent though, and perched on the arm of the sofa without looking at Alfred. "Nice tactics for winning me over."

Alfred looked over at him, and for a precious moment, saw through all that grumpy teen nonsense and the witty comments. He saw the small kid who'd been pushed around all too often, and the shy teenager who's somewhat sour demeanour was purely the product of his difficult life. Or so his over-romanticised though process wanted him to believe. Arthur was a small kid, and he didn't look like he'd survive anywhere else, and Alfred was the one in charge of making sure he didn't throw himself off the top of the apartment block any time soon. Though he despised it, and he wanted Arthur to shut that snappy mouth of his, he was going to have to get used to the fact that Arthur wasn't as outgoing and strong as he appeared. He was going to have to start acting like a proper adult. Like, now.

He remembered when his mother had read out the file of Arthur they'd received from the orphanage, and how he'd been shocked at the extent of the abuse dealt to him. When Alfred had arrived home from school, trailing mud and detentions, he had been met with a warm meal and a disapproving mother who was still glad to see him. When Arthur had mustered up enough courage to drag himself from the library and walk home, he'd been greeted with a firm cuff to the head with or without a succession of raps on the arm for things that weren't really his fault, and there would be nothing but cold ready meals and an empty house for him on weeknights. Alfred had pretended he didn't care, but he'd been remembering how furious the Brit had looked, and equally, how he'd greeted his mother like he indeed wanted a new home. The best Alfred had had as parents was a single mother determined not to raise her son as a lost cause; Arthur hadn't even had that. He'd lived with enemies, with people who had hated him enough to make blotches bloom on his underfed skin, and Alfred couldn't and wouldn't begin to imagine if his mother had done that to him. Nevertheless, he knew the boy didn't want sympathy, and that he just wanted Alfred to be out of his way, and he was pretty much alright with that. He was just going to try harder to be the grown up in this situation.

This attitude, sadly, did not last long.

He leaned back into the sofa, ignoring the loud creaks and complaints of the article of furniture. The sofa had been jumped on, slept on, puked on, by all of his friends and even some people he didn't know, and its better days had ended some time before Alfred had bought it, so it was hardly the most beautiful item in the room. It was nearing the end of its life, or so his mother said, but Alfred was determined to hold onto it for as long as possible. Anything that slightly annoyed his mother was something worth having, in his eyes.

"Anything particular you want for dinner, Arthur?" He flicked the TV on and started to browse through the channels in a casual manner, glancing at Arthur every so often. He'd tucked his bags into a neat pile in the corner of the room by Alfred's haphazard clutter of shoes, and was staring down at his lap like he was imagining himself in a different place. He certainly didn't look happy, even for a generally sallow-looking teenager, and Alfred was beginning to wonder why. "I can order a pizza, if you'd like."

Any of the venom that had been in his words just minutes before was long gone now. "I don't care, whatever."

"Hey bub, I don't want to get anything you won't eat, 'cause that's just a waste."

Arthur openly flinched at 'bub', but didn't look up at Alfred or spit back a retort that would have made his grandma faint. "Fine, pizza then."

"Any particular toppings?" Alfred already had his phone out and was dialling the number for his much-loved friend the pizza man. Whatever had caused this sudden loss of character was unnerving; it was like someone had let the air out of Arthur, and now he sagged on the arm of the sofa like a deflating balloon. Alfred would show him his list of chores in the morning when they were both a little better rested, and as it was a Sunday tomorrow, they'd have plenty of fun 'bonding time.'

"Don't care," He said, then thought for a moment, his large brows furrowing. "Plain, I suppose."

"Would that be plain as in just a base, or as in cheese and tomato?" Alfred was trying at least to elicit an insult from him, that would have been enough for him to relax and stop fretting over his wellbeing.

"Take a wild guess." Arthur looked as if he was on the brink of just storming out, so Alfred went into the kitchen to phone the pizza man, leaving the sofa for Arthur.

Sighing as he held the phone up to his ear, he snuck a glance at the living room, where Arthur was pulling a book out from his bag and curling himself up to read it, not looking up at his surroundings once. As a child, not so much as an adult, Alfred had been so absorbed in his surroundings that he'd felt obliged to stuff every hand-sized object within reach into his mouth. Even now, he was a very kinetic sort of person, and liked to look around at where he was or feel the textures under his hand. To see such an obviously bright young man just ignore the new scenery like he'd seen it a million times was almost sad.

If his placid attitude to Arthur's behaviour persisted until the end of the day, Alfred was going to award himself a gold star. He'd not wanted any of this in the first place; he'd gladly have left Arthur in that orphanage for some other family to pick him up, but he was going to have to live with the fact that Arthur was _here _and that he was going to have to man up for a bit until Arthur got his act together and stopped looking like he wanted to commit a murder. He was going to have to catch whatever was thrown in his face; be it an expletive, a plate, or even a knife, but he wouldn't throw it back. Alfred was going to be strong, of course he was, and that Arthur Kirkland wasn't going to know what hit him. He was ready for a fight, whatever the battleground, whatever the reason.

The lead-up to bedtime was more taxing than he had expected, though.

_Please review and stuff, it helps loads!_


	4. Chapter 4

_Updated. Updated. Updated. Updated. Updated. Updated. Updated. Updated. Updated. Updated._

_Thank you all for your reviews and your favourites and your comments, they're the best :)_

_If you haven't already, please check out my other USUK fanfic. The AU's a little weird, but hey ho, it's fun to write, and I promise those who already read that fic that something will happen soon._

_Ok so I'm sorry nothing much happens in this chapter, but I promise the next chapter's gonna be fun~_

_You guys are great, thank you for your support!_

"I'm going to make it clear for you, Arthur; this is going to have to stop."

Three hours after his revelation, Alfred was starting to have some regrets.

The subject of his epiphany was sat still delicately on the arm of the sofa, his legs primly crossed as he eyed Alfred with distaste. Alfred had tried to be a man and negotiate with him, but it just wasn't happening. Any rule he put down was immediately ignored, be it his curfew or Alfred's attempt to get him to go out once a week and socialise, and he was starting to get tired of it. Anything he said, anything that would remotely put him in a position of power and mean that Arthur would have to do what he said, was shot down and stamped into the ground before Alfred could make any more compromises. He'd suggested youth clubs, sad little loser societies for sixteen year olds who still traded Pokémon cards, even just the street corner where he was bound to pick up a few grimy friends to drink WKD with, but none of it had been taken on board, not even cynically. It seemed to him, unfortunately, that he was fighting a losing battle.

Cool green eyes blinked slowly, like a cat's. "I believe I'm just making a stand for my preferences on the matter."

"That doesn't explain why you've refused to talk to me for an hour and have been threatening to walk out of the window if I make this call." Alfred, phone in hand, number of Arthur's designated therapist flashing on the screen, was getting ready to make the call whether the Brit liked it or not.

"I don't need a therapist, or a counsellor, or anyone to tell me anything." Arthur stated for the fifth time, drumming his fingers on his knee with some form of a patient air. "So you can put the phone down, and go back to watching cartoons or whatever it is you do in your spare time when you're not at work."

Alfred, reining it in as all older siblings have to when dealing with a difficult child, sighed. "I get that," Not that he'd ever been to see a therapist in his life. "Just please, give this a try."

Arthur gave him a lofty look and then proceeded to avoid eye contact with him. "I could count on my left hand how many times someone's said that to me and when it's actually been a good idea; first it was whiskey, then cigarettes, then social activities; see where I'm going with this?"

"Counselling's meant to help you get better."

"I don't need to get better if there's nothing wrong with me."

Arthur's therapist had called Alfred's mother the day before, and had explained that this scenario was likely to happen. Whether he liked it or not, Arthur had certain complications which involved words with lots of p's and e's in them that Alfred hadn't understood a word of, and that he needed a good old chat with a counsellor once a week just to keep the flood of depression from seeping through the cracks. As much as he had been revolted by the idea of driving Arthur to this place and then holding his hand like they were going through a difficult marriage, he had rather liked the idea of a happy Arthur, rather than an Arthur that moped about the place and made less joking comments about jumping out of the window.

It was getting more and more difficult to control his temper. "Well you're hardly jumping around for joy, are you?"

He was given an icy look for that, but he didn't return it. "Just because two people thought it was a great idea to shut me in the cellar during the summer holidays with just enough food to stay alive doesn't mean I want any coddling from overweight middle-aged women."

Arthur had indeed spent a considerable amount of time in a cellar, and the counsellors had practically cried at Alfred down the phone when he had asked about whether those rumours were true or not. He couldn't deny the tales of a nine year old crying through a bolted door were horrible and made his skin crawl, but he was reaching the point of just saying that if Arthur didn't _want _counselling, then he shouldn't be made to have counselling. Alfred was sure loads of kids had recovered from being locked in small rooms by their parents without turning into raging psychopaths, and he had perfect faith that Arthur would just continue to be his prickly self and not be much of a problem to anyone other than Alfred himself and the pizza man, whom Arthur had had an argument with over the fact that the Italian flag on the lad's lapel had been the wrong way round.

"You don't have to be like that; it's only a few sessions, just so you, uh," Alfred looked down at the letter in his other hand. "_Settle in._"

Arthur stood, and crossed the room, obviously entirely _not settled_. "You've already established your music taste is a lesser and meaningless kind, your carpet is atrocious and I would recommend peroxide for those stains, and so far your skills as an older brother have extended only so far as answering the phone on its final ring, what more is there to be settled into?"

Suppressing a scowl, Alfred dropped the letter on the sofa (he would sit on it later and suddenly remember where he was going to have to drag Arthur to in the morning) and went to lean against the wall by Arthur, who was practically inching his way toward the door.

"Look, kiddo, it's either counselling or youth prison, what would you rather?"

Arthur practically hissed at him like a pissy cat. "I'd rather you leave me alone and go tell your counsellors that I don't need any help."

"If you're going to be like that, you could just settle your royal self into bed and leave Daddy Alfred to the areas of his life that don't concern you out."

"You're not my _Daddy_," Arthur's eyes glinted shards of cruel amusement, and he spat the endearment out as if it burned his tongue. "And what life other than me? I'm the bloody centre of your universe now, and if my counselling's less important than your videogame club or whatever, I'm telling your Mummy."

"I have a job," Alfred replied stiffly, turning and striding away to primly kick a discarded pizza box aside. Dinner had been painful; Arthur had picked at his pizza and barely ate two slices before declaring pompously that he'd tasted better lukewarm ready meals prepared by his drunk of a father, and Alfred had sat and simmered until Arthur left to unpack his bags with military grade neatness in the rickety chest of drawers Alfred had added by the side of his bed as a second thought. "And I work damn hard."

Arthur, as Alfred had observed, had a horrible habit of doing a sort of sour laugh-sniff at anything Alfred said in a bid to preserve his dignity, and it humiliated Alfred more than it made him angry. This sixteen year old sort-of-recluse was walking all over him in those beaten brown boots which he refused to take off as he didn't want his socks to touch the carpet, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. If he complained to his mother, she'd just laugh and leave him to do his laundry on his own. If he complained to anyone else, they'd just give him a funny look and continue on their way. Abuse cases weren't meant to be as tenacious as Arthur, and they certainly weren't meant to put up this much of a fight. A selfish, awful part of Alfred was just wishing Arthur would fall into some kind of deep sadness or just lose all this attitude, so Alfred could calmly coach him through the rest of his education years and gently release him into the wild as, he had stressed this quite clearly when regretfully agreeing on the matter with his mother, as soon as possible.

A busy brow raised, and Alfred resisted the temptation to make a remark on them. When Alfred wasn't getting ticked off by that thin smirk, or by the cruel sheen to those dull eyes, Arthur's eyebrows were certainly a topic of internal debate. They weren't excessively large, not worthy of combing-type large, but large enough to seem slightly out of place on his delicate face. When he wasn't getting overly worked up about the fact that Arthur _wasn't doing as he was told_, he was betting on when those eyebrows were going to get tired of hanging there on his face and take a walk like two blonde, hairy caterpillars.

"And where does this phenomenon occur? Handing out leaflets for your talented friend's indie band doesn't count, you know."

Alfred tapped his fingers on his elbows and once again tried to keep a lid on the frustration. "In a café not far from the high street, I work Monday to Thursday every week until winter."

"What's the joint called?" It wasn't curiosity. It seemed like Arthur just wanted to know for the sake of knowing, rather than there being an actual interest behind his words. "I'm imagining something with the word 'burger' in it."

"I'm not going to tell you," Alfred relished in the little power he had still managed to retain. "Wouldn't want you and your nerdy friends disturbing my customers."

"I don't have any friends."

Alfred had been expecting something like 'They're not nerds' or 'Why would I come to your stupid café anyway', but '_I don't have any friends' _had been entirely unexpected. To be fair, Arthur was a little pricklier than your average porcupine and had a pretty sharp mouth when it came to, well, other people in general, so Alfred wasn't really surprised. Alfred had been popular in high school, and got on to a somewhat general extent with most of the kids in his classes. To think that Arthur had _no friends at all _was a little difficult to grasp, but he guessed high school was tough for him then. A little kid whose only defence was a fair amount of sass and a glare that could curdle milk wasn't going to generate enough protection to be a lone wolf; there were going to be some guys who pushed him around and ignored his insults. If any conclusive thoughts had been generated from this realisation, it was that Alfred could have found himself the chance to show Arthur that he wasn't so much of a dick as he had so far made himself out to be. If he came across a dark street, and saw his precious foster brother (who _wasn't _his brother, he had to remember that) being kicked into the ground by pimply seventeen year olds, he could easily take them on and save an awestruck Arthur from turning into a human piñata. That would show him, that would—

"I don't know whether it's been going on for some time and I haven't noticed, excuse me for that, but you've been staring somewhat apishly at the wall for some time and I need to know if I need to call the morgue or not."

He looked up, into the sneering face of Arthur, and rubbed his eyes, making a tired noise with somewhat excessive noise. As he yawned, and stretched his arms out, he could see Arthur looking mildly disgusted as always but tired to boot. It was about half ten, sixteen year old Alfred's bedtime, so he was hoping that Arthur would take the hint and get himself into bed sharpish.

"Just tired," He admitted. It had been a long day, and he hadn't exactly had the most gentle or full night's sleep the night before. "Reckon you should get to bed too."

Obviously dark-ringed eyes gave him a scathing look. "I'm not four; I know when I'm tired and when I'm not."

Alfred held up his hands in the 'whoa' position, trying to stop Arthur from glaring with such acidity at him. "Look, I'm not trying to start a war here; you just look really tired, man."

"So now _you're _telling me how I feel? The service is amazing in this place- I get my own emotions decided for me as well as what looks like an expressionist composition of coffee stains on the floor." Arthur turned and stalked off into _their _bedroom with obvious sheepishness, indicating that he was indeed tired, and that he knew Alfred had been right. He took time to appreciate this one sign of weakness, before he began to gather up the empty pizza boxes to cram into the bin on a later date.

Wedging another bed beside his own had been difficult. Making look less like a double bed and more like two _perfectly separate _beds had been more so. The two beds, one a rickety Ikea experiment he'd done when he'd first bought the flat, and the other a ready-made cheapo bed which had been pushed as far away from Alfred's bed as it could possibly be. Alfred had made do with the Ikea-assembly-with-hiccups bed as he was afraid Arthur would have something snarky to say about it, which meant he would be squished up against the radiator all night; something he would have been more than happy to be if he was alone, but being trapped in a stuffy room with the route to the bathroom blocked by an antsy British teenager wasn't his most favoured situation.

He was hoping Arthur was one of those boys who just lay inert on a surface for more or less thirty seconds before falling asleep- he didn't look like he slept that much to be honest- and Alfred was having worries as to whether insomnia had been thrown into the abused-mind thing as Arthur had hit fifteen. As any decent human being would, he had read up on the side effects of traumatic and on-going events such as abuse, and insomnia had been on the top of that list. This was a worry, as Alfred was out like a light as soon as he stopped moving enough for his body to realise that he was no longer slamming buttons on his Xbox and was actually going to bless himself with a good three hours sleep, and if Arthur was going to be sat up for all that time, he was going to have to make sure he didn't just escape while he was asleep. Though he hadn't shown any interest in taking the short journey from the window to the street outside, Alfred wasn't ruling that possibility out just yet. As far as his overly worried mind was concerned, if Arthur wasn't asleep when he went in there, he wasn't going to move from his bedside until he was counting sheep by the thousand. The last thing he needed was for Arthur to do something stupid like run away or throw himself out of the window, his mother would be _really _angry then.

Speaking of his mother, he thought it best to give her a call now that Arthur was safely out of the room and hopefully asleep. Digging around in his pocket for his phone, he tapped in one of the only things he'd actually memorised other than Call of Duty cheat codes.

As predicted, she picked up after the first ring. _"How's it going?"_

Alfred did a quick sweep of the room just to check Arthur was hiding around some obscure corner. "He's more stubborn than broken, if I'm honest. Took me an hour to get him to touch the carpet with his socks."

"_He's just settling in, Alfred, it's what teenagers do."_

"So his settling in involves calling me an asshat, like I know what that means, refusing to take those shoes off and then insulting the friendly neighbourhood pizza man?" If he was going to receive any more of this Arthur's Just a Kid Don't Act Like a Big Baby business, he may as well be honest about what Arthur had done. So far, he was appearing just the littlest bit rude.

"_I recall the experience of your teenage years as something between being trapped in the seventh circle of Hell and keeping a bison in the living room."_

"I was never rude though, right?" Alfred strolled around the living room, impossible to keep still when on the phone, getting ready for a nice long thrashing from his mother. She was a great parent, and bringing up Alfred single handedly took some amount of elbow grease, but sometimes she would just go all foggy-headed and completely miss the obvious. Arthur was being a little too snappy for Alfred's liking, and he at least wanted her to try and understand it from his point of view.

But, similar to Alfred, she read people like a dyslexic reads the Oxford Dictionary. "_Alfie, baby, this is just something you're going to have to get used to; Arthur's a lot less confident in himself than you were, just give him a chance._"

Alfred sighed. "He's got all the self-belief he needs to look like he wants to deep fat fry me and to blatantly disregard my rule."

"_Your rule? Who are you Alfred, the King of Spain?"_

"I could be the President and that kid wouldn't flush the toilet if I told him to."

He heard his mother make something between an exasperated noise and a snort on the other end of the phone. "_Do you remember how I used to treat you when you were in one of your moods and you wouldn't do anything but sulk?"_

The cheat codes stockpiled in Alfred's head had left no room for childhood memories. "No."

"_Then you won't remember that acting like you're the Roman Emperor isn't going to get you anywhere, be it with a child or a teenager, you're going to have to think about using a different approach with Arthur."_

"Thumbscrews?"

"_I'm being serious, Alfred._"

"So am I."

"_Just remember what he's been through, it's more horrible than either of us could imagine."_

"I get that," Alfred flopped onto the sofa, tucking his knees up to rest his chin on them. "What I don't get is why he can't be as charming as he was on that visit we had to his little beige prison cell."

"_He was charming, he really was, I think you just need to bring it out in him again. Maybe this, rudeness, as you say, is a sort of defence mechanism."_

"Against what? Am I really that terrifying?"

"_You're an older kid, Alfred; he's not going to be that comfortable around you to begin with."_

"He doesn't look like he's ever been comfortable around any other human being in his life."

She clicked her tongue. _"Then make him feel comfortable around you. Be his friend."_

Alfred was in despair. "I really don't think he cares that much about being my friend, or anyone else's. You read the note from his school. And saw his grades. He doesn't want anyone getting in the way, he even told me."

"_But you're not at his school, Alfred, you're not someone he can just avoid. He lives with you, and you're pretty much his guardian now,"_

Alfred felt his stomach lurch at that. Taking care of things wasn't his strong point.

"_He's going to have issues about making friends, his foster parents hit him for goodness sake, but you're going to have to try if you want him on your side." _She did that chuckle she always did when talking about Alfred's previous or current boyfriends, and it sent him into a little panic.

"Of the bed? He's _sixteen_, mom, he's like, a child," Alfred was praying Arthur was tucked up in bed and couldn't hear a word of this. "Plus, he's probably the type to get antsy about… that sort of thing."

"_Of course he's going to be antsy, he's never had a boyfriend in his life."_

"I think you mean girlfriend, mom, he doesn't look the type." Alfred wasn't sure what 'the type' was, but it was the phrase he always used when explaining to his mother that just because her son was gay, it didn't mean every other loser going nowhere was as well.

"_You never know, Alfred, it might be the reason he hates you so much."_

Alfred backpedalled, trying to work out what she was implying and why this was relevant in any way shape or form. "There is no way Arthur is the— are you saying you thing _he's _coming onto me?"

"_I'm stating it as a possibility, after all, he's never had a girlfriend."_

"Loads of kids his age have never been in relationships, it's just normal I guess." Alfred was starting to feel uncomfortable, talking about Arthur and relationships in the same conversation. "And the only relationship I want to have with him is one where he knows to put the toilet seat down and not to play reggae music in the house."

"_Still got the reggae problem? Alfred, you were a baby when we discovered that," _She laughed, and Alfred pulled a face. _"Anyway, that's beside the point; you need to make Arthur like you, whether it's the conventional method of friendship,"_

"He will cut out my eyes with a spoon."

"_Or the slightly less conventional approach of getting into his pants—"_

"I'm not getting into his pants, mom, not even if he stopped acting like an ass and stopped wearing green. He's not my type."

She snorted. _"Alfie, I beg to differ."_

"Anyhow," Alfred was going to be more than glad when she decided she had better things to do than bicker with her son and hang up. "I'm not going near him with a ten foot barge pole and a police riot shield, so you can sleep well at night and I can go and see if he's actually asleep and not listening in on this _very charming _conversation." A brisk subject change, and she would realise he really didn't want to talk about this and that he _really _needed to go.

"_Oh, sure," _She always pretended she had no clue why he was trying to escape, but he could almost hear her grin. "_Call you sometime this week, okay?"_

"Yeah, preferably when I'm not working; the boss doesn't like it when we leave to take calls from our mothers."

"_Whatever you say, baby, I love you._" The phone clicked before Alfred could reply. Not that he wanted to. He was feeling a little miffed at the moment.

Apparently acting hostile to one's foster brother and then stating very clearly that he wanted nothing to do with Alfred was a sign of mutual attraction. If so, Alfred was going to have to rework his entire strategy on how to win Arthur over. He had started to feel a little queasy as the conversation had dragged on, and how he was craving silence and sleep.

Rubbing his eyes, he set the phone down in a place on the sofa he was bound to sit on some time in the future, and plodded into the bedroom. He hadn't got round to painting the walls in there yet, so it was still some kind of flowery wallpaper, and the carpet had little coffee stains where he'd crashed into bed with a mug of instant and had been a little clumsy with it. If one didn't look too closely at them, they looked like brown stains of another type. Arthur had almost certainly cottoned on to this, and Alfred was expecting a comment or two on the décor if he was still awake.

As he pushed the door open, he imagined for a moment that Arthur was tucked up in the little Ikea bed with his, let him guess, _green _pinstripe pyjamas on with his eyes closed, dreaming away about his top grades and his odd music tastes. He was visioning a sort of nativity of stuffed animals- Arthur looked the type to still hang onto those sorts of things- and maybe a cute little nightcap to boot. He was getting ready to burst in with a grin onto a sleeping vision of something a little more beautiful than the awake version of the boy, when someone pretty obviously awake cleared their throat.

Alfred emerged into the room to be greeted with the image of a little fully dressed Arthur smirking up at him with a book in his lap.

"Why aren't you asleep?" Alfred inadvertently demanded, still standing in the doorway in a state of disappointment. He'd wanted Arthur to be asleep. He'd _prayed _for Arthur to be asleep. But no, he was wide awake, and looking pretty pleased with himself as Alfred continued to look like he'd just received more Breaking Bad spoilers.

"Oh, I just loved the idea of you getting into my pants," Sarcasm dripped from his voice like the leaky tap in the bathroom, only the leaky tap didn't make Alfred's face burn and his temper rise with tsunami-type force. "Really made me look up from my book." The Brit was sat cross-legged, rather primly so, looking as if it was nine in the morning, rather than fast approaching eleven at night.

"You'll have sweet dreams then," Alfred was fed up of this kid's little prying comments into his life. He turned his back on Arthur and pulled off his t-shirt, tossing it somewhere to his right, on Arthur's side of the room. "I hope you don't sleep talk."

"Indeed, wouldn't want you hearing all the ways I'm going to make your mother disown you, it'd spoil the fun." Even at this late hour, Arthur was on top form. Alfred's teeth were audibly grinding.

"Just go to sleep, I'm tired, I don't care." His jeans were then thrown somewhere in the vicinity of Arthur's bed in the hope he would trip on them on the way to the bathroom or something, and he rooted around for something to wear. He turned around to face Arthur again, hoping a thunderous sort of expression would help put his point across.

Arthur looked like he was about to say something, but then he made a strangled noise and stared straight past him.

Alfred looked behind him but, seeing just the door and the wall, he frowned. "Something up, kiddo?"

For the first time, Arthur's pale face coloured rather visibly.

Coloured _light pink_.

Arthur was _blushing._

"Couldn't you just…" Arthur was waving a hand vaguely at Alfred, still not looking at him but scowling murderously. "You know…" He looked as if he was having some difficulty with his words. "…put some clothes on…"

Alfred looked down at himself, at his figure he had done so many crunches for in the gym, and smirked at Arthur. The kid was weedy as anything, no muscle of any kind on his body, and although Alfred didn't have the arms of Ivan Braginsky, he was pretty decent in that area. It wasn't like he was as vain as the Frenchman who also trained in the same gym as he did, but he was damn proud of his body. He'd had to seriously cut down on the pizza for it, but all those hours of pining over pepperoni were worth seeing Arthur's face turn the same colour as a traffic light.

"Why?" Alfred now made a point of striding around, reaching down to grab his pyjama bottoms and making sure Arthur got a good eyeful of his torso as he did so. He didn't care what anyone else would have thought about what he was doing; watching the Brit squirm like this was funny to say the least. "If you've got a problem, please tell me."

The precious moment Alfred had savoured was lost, and Arthur turned an ugly shade of puce.

"Put a shirt on, you pompous twat." His voice was almost as sour as his face, and Alfred resisted the temptation to burst into giggles.

"On it, boss." Instead, Alfred just paraded around a little longer, watching the skinny teenager's face darken. "It's nice though, maybe you should try it."

Arthur looked ready to vomit.

"It's good for you," The tables had been turned, and now Alfred was having a mighty good time making Arthur turn steadily purple with anger. "Airs your, uh, muscles."

"Stop being a prick, and just get dressed," The insults were flowing freer than Alfred's comebacks. "Or you're going to have more stains joining those lovely streaks on your carpet."

_It's your carpet now too, buster_, was what he wanted to say, but he didn't dare bring up the whole prolonged house sharing thing, it would make him feel uncomfortable too. "Piddle stains? 'Cause you're looking a little like the child of an over excited spaniel and an aubergine."

The Brit's eyes bulged. "_Blood _stains, from where I cut out your heart and feed it to my dead mother."

"Whoa, slow down there, I'll tell Mommy if you keep talking like that."

"I don't have a _mommy_."

Not knowing what to say to that without sounding horribly rude, Alfred relented and got into bed, turning off the lamp on his side of the room. He heard Arthur mutter some choice curse words, then heard the Ikea bed creak horribly as he too settled himself down to a night of decidedly disturbed slumber. Neither of them were in a good mood; Arthur fuming so much steam was about to fly out of his ears, Alfred pushing down his irritation at his mother as well as at the Brit. Facing away from each other, they said nothing after that, just closing their eyes and trying to get over the fact that this was happening and that neither of them were going to get rid of each other for a considerable amount of time.

Needless to say, that night at least one of them was thinking about Alfred's body.

_Please tell me what you thought of this chapter, I'm sorry that nothing much really happens, but I still want to read your reviews!_


	5. Chapter 5

_Ok so if anyone else is in the Hannibal fandom and you are reading this wowowodhwiohfijeisjepiofjef that episode on Friday was amazing wow_

_Anyway, I hit 20 reviews, thank you!_

_So Alfred takes Arthur to his counselling session today, and let's just say it's not the obvious person who ends up getting all the advice._

_Teensy little character cameo in this one because I was thinking of doing a Franada partner to this fic, would that be a good idea?_

_Also, I'm sorry if there's anything in here that offends you, it's not my intention but I'm sorry if I do write anything you find unsavoury._

_Please enjoy this chapter, I had fun writing the back and forth between Arthur, his counsellor and Alfred. If you would be so kind to leave a little review at the end, you'll make a writer cry happy tears and I shall update by Friday!_

_Thank you for your support :D_

_-Tzitzimime _

"You're going the wrong way."

"You seem to say that every time I go round a corner; the sat nav isn't wrong, this is the right address."

"Well it is."

"No it isn't."

"How do you know there's not a little man in there giving you the wrong directions." A finger was jabbed at the innocent TOMTOM shoved into a corner on the dashboard.

"Arthur, it's almost like you want me to turn around and go home."

"Funny you should say that."

After both waking up in awful moods and immediately squabbling over who went first in the shower, Alfred and Arthur had engaged in an awkward breakfast in which Arthur ate dry toast because he claimed he hated Nutella, and Alfred scarfed down scrambled eggs like there was no tomorrow. They had spent a great amount of the morning ignoring each other as best they could, or trying to sabotage each other's actions to the extent where a shouting match was pending. For example, after being demanded to make Arthur a cup of tea, Alfred had 'accidently' dumped a tablespoon of salt in instead of sugar, and had been chased around the apartment by a sour-faced Arthur. They had joked, well, Alfred had joked and Arthur had insulted him as a result, about the week ahead as one of them had work and the other had school, but the conversation had been wholly awkward. Every time Alfred would make a remark about the weather or the time of the morning or even the fact that life was _great_, Arthur would give him a look that could have scoured the limescale from the kitchen sink and continue to either sip his god awful tea or crunch on his tasteless toast. It seemed like Arthur was just trying to torture himself now- tea was bad enough (Alfred had bought a box of the teabags just out of curiosity, and had gagged for a good ten minutes after that adventure), and the fact that he was eating toast _without _Nutella was all too baffling for Alfred.

When breakfast had passed, and both of them had full enough stomachs to regard each other as equally civilised human beings, Alfred rediscovered the letter Arthur's counsellor had sent him. There had been a quick scuffle in which Arthur had launched himself at Alfred and tried to prise the letter out of his hands and had, in some strange kind of attack move, kicked Alfred rather hard in the ear, but Alfred had tried to be serious and Arthur had slunk back to keeping a good three metres away from him. After giving a pep talk, mostly to himself because fighting with a sixteen year old over a piece of paper really wasn't appropriate conduct, he had called the counsellor and arranged an appointment, while Arthur had sat and glared at him without moving for a good ten minutes. The appointment was set for 11:30, and Alfred had fought to drag Arthur into the car until 11:45, so now they were late, and Arthur was being a royal pain in the backside when it came to giving Alfred directions.

Tapping his fingers on the wheel had become his new method for venting his frustration, and now he was drumming out the rhythm to the song on the radio which Arthur kept turning down.

"It's not going to be that bad, Arthur," He'd repeated the same line when he'd been forcing Arthur to walk down the stairs of the flats, and when he'd been stood with Arthur as he'd refused to get into the car, and it was obvious that what little effect it had had before had completely disappeared. "They only want to help you."

Arthur scoffed at that, hunching himself up in the passenger seat and scowling. His method of dealing with Alfred's supportive-but-really-not-helpful comments looked like it was to try and burn a hole in the dashboard with his eyes and to lift this gaze to Alfred every once in a while. The teenager appeared to have lost some of the fight he had possessed when he had been clawing at Alfred's hands for that letter, but his defeat was not obvious. He didn't slump, nor did he keep sighing and ignoring Alfred as he himself would have done in this situation. Arthur just sat there with his back ramrod straight, eyes focused like lasers on the dashboard, and only occasionally made a comment that would either throw Alfred off or just annoy him.

"I'd rather my mother come out of prison and start punching me again than get help I don't need from those counsellors."

"I think these comments are kind of the reason you need help, Arthur." Alfred glanced over at the Brit as they stopped by the red lights, and he glared back, obviously not impressed.

"I can say whatever I want about what happened to me, nobody's going to complain at me if I do," Despite his polite cheeriness towards everyone he'd held the door open for or passed in the street on their way here, he would sink into his smouldering rage whenever it was just Alfred looking at him. "Plus, counsellors don't do anything anyway."

"Is this lady we're going to see you regular counsellor?" Alfred just ignored the comments, and tried to keep up this conversation. This was the longest chat they'd had all day. His mother had decided with the counsellor that it was best for Arthur to have Alfred in the room as well as they talked about him, just so that Alfred could pick up on what was going on. When this message had first gotten to him and he had realised that he wouldn't be dropping Arthur off then whizzing away to bury himself in popcorn, he had been a little displeased with the fact that he was going to have to sit there like a lemon and listen to some kid talk about his problems. He had whinged and complained as much as he had when the very idea of Arthur's existence had first been proposed, but he was slowly starting to discover the benefits of this endeavours. Arthur wouldn't as much tell Alfred if he liked something or not, much less vent his deepest darkest feelings about his troubled childhood, so sitting with Arthur opposite a woman trained in the dark arts of coaxing secrets from traumatised teenagers would be very useful to his understanding of Arthur. He had no idea what the boy liked or what he didn't because he seemed to pull the same face at everything Alfred presented him, he didn't know if there were complications involving depression or anxiety or some other thing that Alfred had personally never experienced, but if this counsellor was going to tell him anything it was that there was probably nothing wrong with Arthur.

"I'd really like to disagree with you, but I'm afraid it's her."

"So what do you do, in these sessions you have?" Alfred was just curious- so far he had been imagining strait jackets and dentist-type chairs and those little things doctors stick on people's heads in documentaries- obviously not realistic, but it was amusing to imagine Arthur with loads of things stuck to his pale face.

Arthur's tone was flat. "We talk."

"About?"

"Me."

"Yes, I understand that much; what I wanted to know was what in particular do you talk about."

Another dry comment. "The weather."

"I'm serious, Arthur, I just want to know—"

"Well stop just wanting to know then, and wait so you can both coo over me when we get there."

"I'm not my mother."

Arthur snorted. "So your fawning over me is internal?"

Alfred didn't reply, he just took another look at the sat nav (Because of how much Arthur had moaned about the woman's voice being sharp on the ears and that he was prone to headaches and that Alfred just needed to _stop talking _and that they were going to wrong way and Alfred had gotten so fed up he'd just muted it and hoped that it would stop Arthur's complaining. It hadn't.) and sank into a sort of silence.

All teenagers, Alfred knew he had done it when he was younger, had a habit of faffing around with small talk and edging around questions they didn't want to answer. Though Arthur certainly wasn't your average teenager, even he was stepping around Alfred's question as one may tiptoe around a sleeping dragon, and he obviously didn't want to wake the beast and provoke an answer he didn't want to come out of his mouth. It was interesting more than anything, to see him looking so obviously uncomfortable about this subject, but Alfred guessed that for once he was going to have to be patient and wait until they met the counsellor to see what a normal Arthur-to-counsellor conversation was like. He was envisioning a kindly woman at her wit's end with the boy, and that she would turn to him for help with squeezing an answer from Arthur instead of using all her professional skills, and he was expecting at least one comment as to how his girlfriend was doing. Ah, he couldn't wait to shoot that remark down.

"She have a name, this lady we're going to see?" Alfred wasn't good at being polite towards people he didn't know, but if Arthur could do it, so could he.

"Probably, most human beings do." Arthur's façade cracked a little, and there was the shadow of a smirk inching up his pale jaw.

Alfred snorted at that, mostly as an experiment to see what would happen to the boy's smirk. Nothing changed. "I meant do you _know _her name?"

"Not consciously."

Turning around another corner into another street of strange food shops and arcades, he checked the sat nav again. They were almost there. Alfred, funnily enough, wasn't the one dreading it.

"Do you not have any desire to know her name? I thought you were meant to be the polite one."

Arthur looked at him sourly. "I have no interest in the name of a woman who, every week without fail, sits me down and pats my shoulder and tells me I'm probably depressed and that they need to make me choke down pills and join a little society where I can talk to other people about getting hit by our parents. Also, you're going the wrong way."

Checking the sat nav one last time before chuckling under his breath, Alfred went back to staring at the road ahead. "No I'm not, we're here."

Arthur let out the tiniest of groans before slipping into a stiff silence, his fingers laced as he looked out of the window with less than piquant interest. Alfred pulled into the car park that had been added by the counsellor's as a second thought, his little Ford an ant beside two black SUV's, and cut the engine. Evidently, Arthur's counsellor didn't just deal with your average counselee.

"Pretty well off patients, huh." He glanced at Arthur before getting out of the car, watching with satisfaction as the Brit got out as well, and stood with his arms crossed, obviously waiting for Alfred to go first. Even though he'd had to stoop as low as agreeing to do something Alfred had told him to, he still wasn't going in without a fight. Arthur would dilly and dally as much with this counsellor as he had when Alfred had asked him what happened in his sessions.

"You'd think they'd have an IQ higher than the number of zeros in their salary." Arthur muttered, sticking his hands in his pockets and walking around the side of the car so he stood in front of Alfred, looking somewhat expectantly as if Alfred was going to hold his hand on the way in. As what Alfred had come to call usual, Arthur was dressed in tan slacks that made his legs looked like two brown paper bags, a knitted jumper under which he wore a white shirt with a _collar_, and had thrown on his black felt coat as an afterthought. While Alfred was getting used to driving around a Victorian painting, it still irked him that a sixteen year old had this sort of capacity to care so little about the clothes he wore. "Care to guide me into the Inferno?"

Alfred's lip twitched, and he strolled in what probably looked like a leisurely fashion up to the door of the painfully clinically-looking building. "So am I to be your Virgil?"

Arthur had begun to follow him when he gave a start. "You've read Dante?"

He gave the Brit a look as if Arthur had just told him he was actually looking forward to this meeting. "No. I played Devil May Cry."

"I don't want to know what that is, I don't want to know if I'm going to care about what that is, but I advise you to just open the bloody door and get this over with."

Alfred complied without a second thought, and pushed the door open with his shoulder, holding it open for Arthur, who just blinked at him and continued to walk.

Apparently, as Arthur had told him with some satisfaction, this counsellor was some private consultant or something, so there was no reception, just a small waiting room opposite a white painted door. When Alfred sat down on one of the moulded plastic chairs, ignoring how it creaked, Arthur just stood and stared sullenly at the door.

When Alfred questioned this, he was just met with a cold look.

"Sitting down just makes it worse when you have to stand up again." He didn't have that defeated tone one might expect when a person is about to enter a place they really didn't want to go to, he just sounded a little blank. "But I guess you have nothing to worry about."

Alfred decided to stand to see if that would make Arthur feel better in any way, and leaned against the wall beside him. There were lots of posters of smiling girls plastered around the door, but none of them had slogans more inventive than 'Be Happy' and the bright colours hurt Alfred's sleep-deprived eyes.

"She'll talk to me as well," Alfred decided to try and console him, make him feel a little better about this whole ordeal. "Mom wanted her to assess me to see if I'm not crazy enough to murder you in your sleep or anything."

Alfred swore he saw Arthur's narrow shoulders relax for just a second, before he hunched them up and started scowling again. "I can't imagine why you would want to do that."

Sinking back into previous arguments while both about to enter a place where arguing with a patient wasn't recommended, so Alfred just let Arthur's comment pass over his head. He didn't reply to Arthur at all, and just stared at the white door, imagining what he and Arthur standing beside each other must have looked to an external eye. Alfred, leaning against the wall in his red checked shirt and fitted jeans, and Arthur, stood to military straightness in his old man trousers and neat green jumper, both waiting for that door to open and their lives to be turned inside out by the counsellor. Alfred, with his messy hair he'd put gel in just to make the unkemptness of it look a little bit more intentional, and Arthur, with his flat, dull blonde locks that kept falling into his eyes. Despite their obvious differences, they were both staring blankly at the door with glazed expressions, and were pointedly refusing to acknowledge each other's existences. They just stared, lost in their own thoughts, both subconsciously praying that some cosmic event would occur in which this meeting would be postponed to a later date(Alfred was envisioning a meteor, Arthur the sudden death of a close relative), just waiting for that door to open.

There was a quiet click, the one you might expect from the door of a space ship or a secret CIA bunker, then the slightly less professional noise of a nose being blown.

The door swung open.

And instead of being greeted by perhaps a round-faced woman with open arms and a smile that emitted rainbows, Alfred saw a small blonde boy leaving the room as fast as he possibly could. In the brief moment he saw the boy's face, Alfred glimpsed features as dainty but considerably softer than Arthur's, large round glasses behind which violet eyes streamed with tears, and jaw length blonde hair out of which a careless sort of curl bounced wildly. A woman appeared in the doorway, and Alfred had no time to take in the stern face and the clinical blankness of a well-trained nurse as she shouted bodily at the boy.

"Make sure you bring this French friend of yours next time, Mr Williams!" She called at the boy's retreating back. "He'll be better company than that bear of yours."

Her eyes lingered on the blonde boy until the door had slammed behind him, then she turned her sharp gaze to Alfred.

"When is your appointment?" She all but snapped, her hands placed firmly on her wide hips as if she was trying to prove something as she did so. Alfred glanced at Arthur, who was still staring stonily ahead. "And please don't tell me you've brought some fluffy polar bear with you that you keep forgetting the name of, because if you have I'd like you to kindly leave it somewhere a cleaner may just sweep into a bin."

"I—we're—" Just her voice was enough to send Alfred falling over his words as Arthur probably did in gym class, and he saved himself by pointing rather viciously at Arthur. "It's his— his appointment."

As if she had only just noticed Arthur existed, the counsellor's hands dropped and she gave him a warm smile. "Arthur dear, I didn't notice you there."

"You say that every time," Arthur replied in an emotionless voice. Alfred just stood and felt awkward as they exchanged looks. "I'm beginning to think your observing skills have slipped."

The woman clicked her tongue and half turned to usher them both in, Arthur oddly going in first. "Don't be ridiculous, Arthur. That's a new shirt."

As they followed her into the square, yellow painted room and sat down in the two seats opposite a wide, plain desk devoid of those funny physics balls-on-strings and other desktop knick-knacks you'd expect a counsellor to have, Alfred was starting to have other thoughts on this woman. She didn't seem like the young, eager to help-type counsellor he had been predicting, and looked more of the seasoned trained-in-all-areas nurse who'd talked to enough paranoid teenagers to carry out the same routine on each one. She certainly didn't look like the type of woman who was capable of taking any shit from Arthur, be it his cynical wordplay or his blatant denials or refusals to do what he was told.

"Indeed it is," Arthur replied stiffly. "A parting gift from the children's home for being such a darling over the years."

The woman sat down, resting her chin on her palm as her eyes fixed firmly on Arthur. Except the first few seconds when her calculating eyes had been fixed on him, Alfred was proceeding to be completely ignored by the counsellor. He supposed she was the kind of counsellor to address who she wanted, how she wanted, and that she refused to stand for any sort of interruptions.

"Now, Arthur, we're not here to reminisce, are we?"

"What a shame, I was hoping to entertain you both with the tragic backstory of this session's protagonist." Arthur obviously knew how to play this game.

"I'd rather," Her gaze flicked to Alfred, and he felt caught in her cold eyes. She wasn't going to put up with any complaining from either of them, even if it was fully justified from Alfred's point of view. "You introduced me to your friend here."

"He's not my _friend," _Arthur was clearly making it obvious to anyone he met that he had no emotional ties with Alfred whatsoever. Despite this comment, he still found the courtesy to wave a hand in Alfred's general direction and not make a derogatory comment about his sexuality. "I live with him."

A heavy eyebrow twitched. "So your boyfriend, then? Arthur, have you been keeping secrets from me?"

Arthur turned a purple colour similar to the one he'd regarded Alfred's naked torso with yesterday. Alfred just looked ahead, forcing himself to stay calm. If he reacted to any of this, she'd probably start suspecting worse.

When Arthur didn't speak for a considerable amount of time and was looking as if he was imploding, Alfred decided to take the reins.

"We're— I look after him now," Alfred explained, trying to word it in a way that didn't sound remotely sinister. This woman looked like she would pick apart every word he said until he broke down crying on the floor. "Guess you could say I adopted him."

"So you wanted a little brother?" Her eyes flashed. "Sweet."

"It was Mom's idea, you see," Alfred said lamely, almost as an afterthought. "To build moral fibre, or something."

Arthur was still looking like he'd been shot in the head, and it felt as if Alfred was to be the one initiating all the conversations now.

The counsellor looked Alfred over with some intrigue. "And has it?"

"I guess so."

She turned her eyes towards a still relatively purple Arthur. "What about you, Arthur? What you think about living with your friend here?"

"I'm looking forward to dying prematurely from malnutrition."

"Melodrama has never and will never have any effect on my judgement, Arthur, I'd like you to be a little more honest as I repeat the question," She sounded more like an FBI psychologist than a lowly common or garden counsellor, and Alfred was starting to consider treading as carefully around the minefield her questions posed as Arthur was. "What do you think about living with Mr Jones?"

Alfred blinked. He hadn't remembered telling her his name.

Arthur too looked a little unsettled by the repeat of her question but, stubborn as ever, he stared her down in defiance and answered her question. Compared to the snivelling boy who had so hastily exited the room, Arthur had a fighting chance of resisting all kinds of therapy she tried.

"It's mediocre." Arthur finally said in a measured tone, tapping a finger on the arm of his chair. His legs were crossed, his shoulders relaxed, and only his eyes burning with all-consuming hatred gave away the fact that he was well and truly pissed off with what this woman was going on about.

She was winning now, and she knew it. "To cure this, _mediocrity_, I suggest engaging in excursions with your friend," She indicated Alfred, and he stuck his jaw out in a goofy smile. At least he wasn't the one getting thrashed now, and Arthur had turned his laser gaze to him now. "Maybe go out to the movies?"

"I don't like all this Avengers tosh he plasters all over his walls." Arthur's tapping fingers gripped at the arms of the chair, and he stared frozenly ahead.

Alfred was personally offended by that, those posters were authentic, but he said nothing as he knew worse was to come.

"You could go out shopping, maybe get yourself some new books. In all the time we've had this meetings, you've always read the same books over and over. It'll be good to try new things." Her voice wasn't raised in question as if she was suggesting something, or even that she was implying that Arthur do these things. She was _telling _him to do it, and although the Brit looked ready to make an Arthur-shaped hole in the door, Alfred had no doubt that he was going to do exactly what she said.

"There are no bookshops around the flat. There's _nothing _around the flat but other flats and crummy sports shops." Arthur had evidently been bottling his frustration up, as now he rose from the chair, the legs scraping across the floor, and he spun and jabbed his finger at Alfred.

As ever the reluctant pacifist, Alfred remained seated, but held his hands up and tried his best to coax Arthur back into his seat. "C'mon sport," He said, the eyes of the fuming Arthur boring into his own. "Just sit down again; we were having a nice chat, right?"

"Why are you asking me these questions?" Voice still dangerously calm, Arthur turned to the counsellor, who was looking neither shocked nor impressed by Arthur's outburst. His finger still jabbing at Alfred, Arthur was definitely not ready to sit back down and continue talking about all the parks he and Alfred were going to skip through in the future. "_He's _the one you should be telling to re-evaluate his life."

Alfred was about to encourage Arthur out of the room so he could work out what on earth was going on. "Now, you can't—"

"Keep going," The counsellor's voice, calm and cold, cut over Alfred and make him immediately fall silent. "Why does he need to re-evaluate his life?"

Arthur was the kind of boy to immediately side with someone who obviously disliked the same people as he did, and now he didn't let his hatred for his counsellor get in the way of his Alfred-centred rant.

"First of all," He appeared to have calmed down a little. "It's his hideous dress sense; no-one but dead RAF fighters from the 1920s wear brown leather bomber jackets, and I don't know how your circulation hasn't given up in your legs from those awful jeans," As ever the sixteen year old granddad, Alfred had expected Arthur to first rain down upon his dress sense.

Alfred smirked. Arthur hadn't yet seen the collection of clothes that were the only things he cared about enough to bury in his closet. He nearly choked. Arthur would _never _see those.

The counsellor just smiled and motioned for him to continue. "Go on."

"Then there's his loutish eating habits," Arthur's arms were crossed, and he seemed a little pacified by the fact that he could just wang on about how much Alfred pissed him off and how little the other people in the room seemed to care about it. "I can hear him chomping that god awful pizza from the other side of the, I hardly need to say it, _cramped _flat."

Whatever Arthur was doing, whether he was just venting out his feelings as a normal teenager may have done when faced with a counsellor, it was certainly giving Alfred a couple of worries he was sure to be dwelling upon long after this meeting. If what Arthur was saying wasn't entirely based on the fact that he had never really liked him much, then he was in trouble. If he really was 'loutish' and as disgusting as Arthur made him out to be, then he needed to do something about it. He already was going back on his promise to try and be an awesome big brother for Arthur and to support him through everything, and there was nothing much he could actually do that would put a smile that wasn't mocking on the boy's face. If Arthur didn't stop talking like this, then that counsellor was going to have some second thoughts about his skills as a sort of parent-not-parent.

"So you're not feeling comfortable living with him?" Her smile had faded, but there was a twinkle in her eye that Alfred couldn't quite place. She didn't appear to be mocking him or Alfred; there was just an undercurrent of amusement in her features that was baffling him a little. After she had started off shooting Arthur's remarks down like they meant nothing, Alfred had been expecting her to yell at the boy to sit down with enough force to turn the Arthur's hair white. But now, he was wholly confused as to what her attitude towards Arthur was.

"Absolutely not."

"And you, Mr Jones, understand why he is saying the things he is?" That was a question he couldn't refuse to answer.

"Absolutely."

"Arthur, would you do me a favour and just wait outside for a minute, I'd like to talk to Mr Jones about one little thing in private." The boy complied more than happily, more or less storming out of the room, and Alfred watched him slam the door behind him before turning back to the counsellor with a heart full of dread. Well, not just his heart; pretty much all his organs felt as if they were filled with _lead_, not so much dread. He felt heavy and reluctant to face this woman who was probably going to give him a lecture on personal hygiene or a pamphlet on controlling your teenage child or something.

He knew she wasn't going to be very happy with him. Alfred had just sat there like a lemon as Arthur had shaken his fist and glowered at the both of them, and he certainly hadn't come across as a caring sort of parent figure by standing and ignoring Arthur the whole time they were waiting for their appointment. Even though Alfred was trying his best with courtesy and respect towards Arthur, he was having a little bit of a hard time trying to get round the fact that no matter how many doors he held open for Arthur, or how many cups of tea he clumsily made him, none of it was going to be returned in any way whatsoever. He shifted in his chair and sat up a little straighter, preparing for a sound thrashing.

Instead, the watching counsellor rested her chin on her palm and leaned a little further over the desk.

"He likes you." She said, her serious expression morphing into a satisfied grin.

Alfred nearly choked on air for the second time. "No he doesn't."

"Yes he does," The counsellor looked beside herself with glee at what seemed to be a product of her own imagination. "Normally he cares too little about anyone else to insult them as much as he just insulted you."

"Are you saying that, because he ridicules my dress sense and calls me funny British insults I don't understand, that he _likes _me?" Alfred wanted to laugh, but he was still afraid of getting on this woman's bad side. "That's not how most people express their affection towards someone."

"Being hit all the time is not how most children expect their lives to be like," Her eyes blinked shrewdly at him, and Alfred was finally starting to get it. "Arthur's just a little clumsy with emotions, as all, he doesn't know how to react to the fact that he tolerates you a little more than the rest of the human race."

_What._

He wanted to know more now. "If you don't mind me asking, how do you know?"

She chuckled, and her eyes never left Alfred's. "Watching him turn all those funny colours when I called you his boyfriend was more than obvious that he doesn't completely despise you."

"Does Arthur actually have any friends?" My, that sounded crueller than he had expected. "I mean, you say he's like this to me because he likes me, so does he act like this around others?"

"He has a few people he sits with in the library sometimes, he tells me, but I don't think he regards them in the same way as he sees you."

Alfred paused, confused. "How does he see me? He seemed really revolted when I suggested the idea of me being his foster brother."

She laughed again, and Alfred was praying Arthur wasn't stood with his ear glued to the door.

"He doesn't see you as a friend, Mr Jones, you must know that he has no intention of being friends with you."

"How can that be? You just said he—"

Arthur's counsellor sighed, as if Alfred was as tedious as her actual patient was. She fixed him with her hard eyes, but her smile arched in a knowing gesture.

"He loves you, Mr Jones."

_Aaaaand you'll just have to wait until Friday to find out how Alfred reacts to this. You're all great, thank you all for reading, don't forget to leave a little review!_


	6. Chapter 6

_Sorry this chapter's a little late in the day- I had some important things to do!_

_Thank you all for your support, I can never stress how much your comments inspire me to write more and to at least cheer up a little once in a while._

_I hope you have had (or will have) a wonderful day, please enjoy this chapter, and don't forget to post a little review for me when you're done!_

_You are the most fabulous readers I could have wished to write for._

_Happy Women's Day as well!_

_-Tzitzimime _

Apparently, according to those friends Alfred had who had experienced it; love was exactly how it was written in romance novels. Lots of butterflies, awkward staring, and, more often than not, rejection. Alfred had spent many of his high school days dragging his friends away from crushes or boyfriends/girlfriends so they weren't late for lessons, and it seemed that, if two people were in love, they could barely go an hour without seeing each other. He had always been the gooseberry of the group, the one who was either too much of a prude to try out being with a girl or just wasn't interested in a relationship which required any sort of commitment, but he pretty much knew what the outlines of love were. Love was lots of looking into each other's eyes, hand-holding, and compliments or little giveaway words that knowingly betrayed their affections. Love was admiring and adoring a certain person more so than everyone else, and love was seeing the affection someone had for you shining in their eyes.

Love was not Arthur Kirkland.

Love was not rude or glaring, love didn't look at you like you'd either grown an extra head overnight or killed someone's grandmother. Love certainly wasn't short and blonde with a complexion that was almost transparent, and love's warm arms weren't thin and spindly like that of a shop mannequin. Love didn't have a temper that rivalled the fury of a hurricane, and love would never make threats about pickling their flatmate in a jar until it got what it wanted.

Love was not, to the complete obliviousness of both Alfred and the counsellor; leaning against the other side of the door looking like he'd just eaten a particularly potent poison.

_How the fuck was Arthur Kirkland in love with him?_

"Sorry," He finally managed to choke out after a prolonged period of strained silence. "What was that?"

He misheard.

Of course he misheard.

Oh, Alfred, you really need to start getting a grip with—

"The fact he loves you isn't a big deal, Mr Jones, especially for a man of your… preferences." The counsellor gave him a gleeful look, and Alfred felt his ears start to burn. Curses. At the one time in his life he had wished for his attention to be elsewhere, he had been completely focusing on what she was saying.

Alfred was now adamant that, no matter how much dignity he had already lost, he was going to get on his knees and scrape it back together. "Don't be ridiculous, he's only sixteen. Plus, I don't know if you can read minds or anything, but it's not hard to tell that kid's got knives on his mind every time he looks at me."

"Ever dated, Mr Jones?" This was becoming uncomfortable, but her sharp gaze eliminated all stalling and stammering from Alfred's voice. She was to be answered, no questions asked.

"Not exclusively." He was the lamest nineteen year old he knew, and that was saying something.

A pencilled eyebrow rose. "I find that hard to believe."

"Well, going on how much information my mother seems to have kindly told you, you may as well give her a call, she'll have much more to say about my romantic achievements than I do." Alfred was going to call her when they got home, and he was going to try and iron this _very _creased mess out.

"That's beside the point," Looking down at the files in front of her she had been pretending to read whilst Alfred had been having his internal mental breakdown, she suppressed a smile. Nineteen year olds were always the funniest. "Arthur has a profound and dare I say obsessive infatuation with you."

Alfred blinked. "Are you talking about the same Arthur Kirkland who sleeps in the same room as me every night and tells me his criminal mother did a better job of cooking his meals than I do?"

She nodded, and Alfred cringed.

Sure, he'd had love confessions before; from the friends of girls who giggled up to him in the corridors, from girls themselves who refused to believe the fact that he was very much attracted to the other gender, and they had never been harder to brush off than how one would perhaps swat away a mosquito. He'd dealt with rejections, both from his and other people's confessions, and swore he'd been stalked by some crazy blonde girl because she had caught him _talking _to her older and decidedly less frightening sister. Nothing emotional directed towards him had ever been difficult to either deny or reject, sure he'd felt bad about it afterwards just for the sake of being a normal human being, but he'd never mooned over it in the way other people had. His habit of just moving on and getting along with everyone in a mutual manner was one of the only things he'd received from his late father (late in this sense as late for dinner when Alfred was younger, late for his school plays, late for family outings, Alfred's graduation, his mother's hospital bed when she had fallen ill- late in this sense was just Alfred's expectancy to see him turn up one day, perhaps at his wedding, and apologise for all the things he had never arrived at).

None of them had been like this.

Arthur was small. Arthur was weedy. Arthur was _sixteen_. Royal Arthur Goddamn Kirkland had no place in his life other than as a nuisance or source or cruel amusement. Alfred didn't give anything to Arthur that he didn't think he wouldn't benefit from, he didn't throw his affections around like one of those girls who throw rose petals at the bride and groom at a wedding, and he certainly didn't act as if he had anything more than mutual regard for the boy. There was no reason as to why Arthur's apparent adoration for him should be his fault; he hadn't led Arthur on about anything, he certainly hadn't _pretended _to like him, and there was no possibly reason as to why Arthur _loved _him.

"Do you know what might have started this…" He trailed off, searching for the right phrase that wouldn't sound odd. "…problem?"

"Now, now, Mr Jones, the affections of teenage boys are not problems," It was as if she was giving _him _the therapy now, rather than Arthur. "If I were you, I'd be very flattered."

"Flattered?" Alfred let out something between a nervous laugh and a cough. "Flattered by the fact that my potential murderer is infatuated with me?"

"Yes."

"How is that possible anyway?" Alfred still wasn't quite getting his head around the sentence that had started this panic. "He hates me."

"How many other people do you think Arthur has affections for?"

Alfred slumped in his seat, defeated. "Not many, I guess."

"Exactly none."

"Except me?"

She nodded. "Except you."

"But how can you see that through all his glaring and stuff?" Alfred didn't understand what he didn't understand anymore, his thoughts were just rolling into one big stream of confused jabber that swirled his head around and made him feel a little queasy. "I know you're like, a psychic medium or something and can read people like my mom reads vegetarian cook books, but how can you see his deep love for me _if all he's doing is trying to burn holes in the side of my head with his eyes?" _His voice raised a little, but he lowered it again almost immediately, feeling rather imprudent.

The counsellor chuckled quietly, evidently amused with the extent of his distress. "Like I said earlier, it's his defence mechanism. He doesn't want you to know that he doesn't think you're something one might find at a landfill, so he's trying to make out that he doesn't care about you."

Alfred laughed at that. "Don't you think he's being a little excessive with his carefulness?"

"I've been talking to him once a week for three years, and Arthur's always been a very careful boy. He checks and double checks and triple checks he's done all his homework, he looks and looks again then looks once more in the mirror to make sure he doesn't look stupid, and he hides and hides again then hides once more the feelings he has towards other people. If I hadn't seen him when you both walked in, I would have missed it myself; that boy's a devil when it comes to telling me the truth." Her eyes were diverted from the papers again as she looked back up at him.

"So what, did you see a magical twinkle in his eyes or something?" If Arthur was careful, Alfred was just dumb. "Because whatever you saw, it seems to have completely bypassed me and most of the other people who've ever known Arthur."

"And how long have you known Arthur?"

"Dunno. A week, two weeks top whack."

She began to look more curious than calculating, her eyes focusing on his own. "And in that time you have known him, has he ever just stopped moving and gone a little stiff, as such." She mimicked freezing with a sort of glazed expression, and Alfred shook his head at that.

"No, he's never done anything like that."

"Has he ever locked himself in the bathroom for hours on end, not for any particular reason, and refused to come out?"

"Nope."

"Have you ever seen his eyes looking a little red around the edges?"

Alfred's brows furrowed. "Are you saying that Arthur _cries_?"

Her smile widened, but this smile was a little more clinical. "Mr Jones, our Arthur Kirkland isn't as untainted as he seems."

"So he _has _cried?" Alfred wasn't sure if he was awake or not now, or if this woman was just winding him up.

"Well, until about a week ago, two weeks _top whack_," Her eyes shone. "Little Arthur Kirkland's pillow was tearstained almost every night."

Alfred's face slackened, but the rest of his body tensed. "What do you mean?"

"What I mean is, if you're beating him again," Alfred looked appalled at this, and she just waved her hand in dismissal. "If you're giving him suppressants, or even if you're just tucking him into bed at night, it's having a profound effect on his behaviour."

Alfred had given up on asking what she meant, so he just sat very still and listened very carefully.

"When he came in with you and sat down, that was the most relaxed I have seen him for three years."

"But he never seems to be unsettled, like I've never seen him look like he's not sure of himself."

"Well you wouldn't, that's his game," She paused, just in case Alfred was going to interject again. "You're the last person he'd want to see his emotions get wasted on, and he's determined to keep you in the dark about what's beneath his skin."

"So, what you're saying is, that behind all that sarcasm and cruel humour there's a little sad kid trying to get out?" Sounded like one of those stories girls in his class would write.

"Cruel?" She laughed. "I think his humour's quite funny, don't you?"

"Not when it's directed at me and my apparent lack of education."

"Arthur is a very academic boy, and he feels like he has to look down on you because you perhaps weren't."

He snorted. "Is this just another part of him showing his deep love for me?"

"What I'm trying to say, and this is one of the reasons why Arthur's the way he is, is that he has some problems he refuses to resolve."

"Problems?" Worry soon replaced incredulousness. As much as Alfred disliked Arthur and the way he acted, he wasn't the type to act unsentimental about a kid whose issues were being revealed to him slowly like raffle tickets. He almost dreaded asking the next question. "What kind of problems?"

Arthur's hour in the counsellor's office had long since passed, and a slightly impatient Brit was now examining the posters he'd never bothered to look at before. The counsellor herself had begun to realise the time, and was about to extradite Alfred off to a pleasant afternoon with Arthur.

"I think you should talk about this with Arthur," She concluded, much to the dismay of Alfred. "It'd be better for him to explain to you what he thinks about all this."

"You want me to ask him why he used to cry at night?"

She fixed him with a more nurse-like gaze. "I want you to ask him why he doesn't cry anymore."

Alfred went back to looking dumbstruck, but the words froze on his tongue for the split second moment he realised what she was talking about. "You want me to make him confess?"

"Yes." She affirmed, and then stood up, implying that Alfred stand too. "And I believe you have a teenager to take clothes shopping."

He slouched and pulled a face as if his mother had told him to do it, but her expression was far from impressed.

"Fine," He sighed. "But there's no way I'm ever letting him buy anything that's green or knitted."

The counsellor opened the door for him, where a sour faced Arthur was leaning against the opposite wall, and gave Alfred a final, somewhat reassuring smile.

"It'll be fine," She said, patting his arm as he paused in the doorway. "Just don't mention anything I told you."

"Why shouldn't I—" Still completely confused as the door was shut in his face, Alfred turned around so he was facing Arthur, and plastered a cheesy grin onto his face. "Hey fella."

Arthur, though looking a little less pale than usual (as in, bright pink) and refusing to meet his eyes, appeared to be surprisingly level headed. "You took your time." He muttered, without any of the usual nasal sort of zest he had in his normal speech.

"She wanted to give me some advice." Alfred admitted, hoping Arthur wouldn't interrogate him too much. Whatever the cause, his reluctance to lie or his general morally correct thought process, he found keeping things from other people extremely difficult.

The Brit turned to him with a bitter expression as they left the building. "About?"

"You." Alfred said cautiously, praying that would be that and Arthur wouldn't ask any more questions about it.

"Hah," Arthur let out a dry laugh. "Still scared you'll wake up one morning and find me choking on pills?"

He was glad that Arthur was at least making a joke about this, however mildly nauseating it was. "Something like that."

When they were outside, Arthur made a break for the car, but Alfred caught his arm and stopped him from barricading himself inside the Ford as Alfred had been dreading he was going to do.

Despite looking positively revolted at the fact that Alfred had touched him in such a way, and Alfred was feeling pretty stupid for doing it, Arthur stopped moving and looked up at him sullenly but questioningly.

"Something the matter, my liege?" As ever the cynic, even Arthur's curiosity was soured by his temper. "We appear to have stopped moving."

"I know," Alfred stopped walking, let go of Arthur's arm to the Brit's relief, and fished around in his pocket for his wallet. "We're going shopping."

Arthur looked at him as if Alfred had just got down on one knee and proposed to him (although without all the blushing and stuttering). "Are you joking? Can't you just go when I'm at school or something?"

As Alfred started walking down the road, Arthur grumbling and following him, he laughed. "I'm not buying things for myself, we're off to get you some new clothes and we can go for a milkshake after if you'd like."

Sticking his hands in his pockets and groaning, Arthur didn't look impressed. "What I'd _like_, is for you to just drive me home so I can read my book and you and do the laundry or something."

He chuckled, forcing himself to stay in good spirits. If he wanted Arthur to at least like him, let alone open up to him, he was going to have to stop being such an ass. Although, he wasn't just going to play at being _completely _oblivious of the things his counsellor had told him. "You calling me the wife, Arthur?"

As Arthur was keeping his eyes glued to the pavement like Alfred was Medusa, he snuck a glance at the Brit's face, and saw that funny red colour starting to return. Either he did that quite often like some kids did as just a reaction to everything mildly mortifying, or Arthur was _really _enjoying the idea of he and Alfred joining in holy matrimony.

"I never said anything of the sort," Arthur snapped at his feet, the redness spreading to his ears. Alfred was stifling gags and giggles at the same time. As much as he was revolted by the idea of this kid being _attracted _to him, it was still pretty funny watching him get all wound up like this. "And your mother has to do the laundry for you anyway."

"Gosh, Artie," He made Arthur look up at him with a venomous expression at the nickname. "Didn't know you hated the idea of me being your wife so much."

With a sputtered curse and a darkening blush, Arthur went back to gluing his eyes to the pavement. "Not all of us are as gay as you are, you know."

Alfred laughed quietly as they rounded the corner onto the high street. "You'd be surprised."

Arthur didn't reply to that, and just continued turning ever more alarming shades of red as Alfred tried to suppress his laughter. He knew he was supposed to be the sensible adult who was really going to have to work hard to coax this kid out of his shell, and he knew he was meant to be trying to get into Arthur's good books so he would start to trust him a little more, but it was just so _funny_. Seeing a kid, especially one of just pompousness and self-assurance as Arthur blushing like a twelve year old and making half-coherent denials was pretty amusing. Alfred was going to be careful not to push him too far, just in case Arthur took it too seriously and started doing all those worrying things the counsellor had so heavily implied, but he was at least going to have himself a little bit of fun, just for to today anyway.

And he was still trying to get over the fact that Arthur _loved _him.

He didn't just _like_ him, he didn't think he was reasonable when it came to human beings, he _loved _him. Alfred, who had never really loved anyone to the point of, as Arthur appeared to be reaching, internal combustion. There was no-one he had really treasured above all the other people in his life, and there hadn't been any moments when he had really felt that cheesy 'connection' with anyone. Maybe he was just one of those unsentimental douchebags who were too shallow to feel actual deep feelings for anyone else, and maybe his romantic life was about to peter out into one night stands and clumsy kisses at nightclubs at two in the morning. However, whatever his romantic situation may be, and however much he was going to fail I terms of finding himself a partner, he wasn't going to give this Arthur Kirkland any chance at all. He was _sixteen_, for goodness sake, he had grades and girls and getting stabbed to worry about being in a relationship with an older man. Alfred was just trying to be rational, and not take this as flattery as he knew some of his friends would; Arthur Kirkland would be no good for him, and he would be no good for—

Arthur Kirkland tapped his arm impatiently, snapping him out of his thoughts. "Isn't that the kind of shop you get your sickeningly tight jeans from?"

Taking a moment to adjust himself back into the real world before something stupid came out of his mouth, he turned his head to look where Arthur was pointing. It was one of those generic men's clothes shops, nothing flashy or edgy, but it was good enough for Alfred. Surveying the models in the window satisfaction rose within him. Good. Not a shred of beige or cashmere in sight. Alfred was going to take this chance to get Arthur some decent clothes so he didn't look like a grumpy sack of potatoes. Who knew, maybe this dramatic costume change would at least give Arthur chances with the female gender, and his attention would be drawn away from Alfred.

Ignoring the quip, Alfred nodded, and they both crossed the road to loiter outside it. "Want to go have a look and see if there's anything you like?"

"Not really, but if you insist."

Alfred took another look at Arthur's baggy slacks and practically shoved him into the shop. "Yes, I'm insisting, I'm insisting, just go look for something you like."

Arthur meandered off into the swaying racks of clothes like a gazelle in the savannah, whilst Alfred prowled around the edges, searching for something he would recommend for Arthur. He had to think about the size of things as well- normally he just bought whatever looked like a decent size then either threw it on or away depending on if it fitted or not- because Arthur was so much smaller than he was. There were a couple of shirts with obnoxious videogame characters on them, but Alfred didn't think Arthur would see the funny side of it, so he set about looking for some nice jumpers that didn't look like something a well-meaning but completely unskilled grandmother had made in her sleep. Going through the jumpers, picking out a couple of striped ones that didn't look like they would make Arthur look like a coat hanger with a face, he lifted his head over the racks of clothes and kept a close eye on the Brit.

Arthur was flicking through the clothes as Alfred had expected him to do-without interest and very much enthusiasm- but he was looking nonetheless. He picked out a couple of items; Alfred didn't know where he had found them in such a reasonably trendy store, but they were the kind of clothes better suited for lighting people's fires than being attractive on the human body. He was tempted to just rush over and snatch the clothes out of his hand, but he decided to leave the Arthur to his own devices. The boy's face was blank with concentration, and he was checking pretty thoroughly through those clothes like he was actually showing some interest. Alfred wondered if Arthur would be looking through the clothes like that if he knew Alfred was watching him.

After a long time of browsing through clothes some distance away from Arthur, trying not to look overly camp as he piled shirt after shirt, jeans after jeans, into the basket he now balance in the crook of his elbow. He always kept Arthur in sight, just in case he got any funny ideas and walked out of the shop, but didn't go and consult him over any of the clothes, because he knew he would just shake his head at anything Alfred showed him. He was going to pay for all these clothes- he had enough money saved from paying his ridiculous rent- and Arthur was going to wear them tomorrow, no questions asked. He had come to the conclusion that, because he had not observed Arthur actually picking any clothe out, he was going to buy the garments he had selected and just see how that worked out. Either Arthur would give him an evil look and refuse to put the clothes on, or he would give him an evil look and would at least try a couple of the jumpers on.

Sneaking past Arthur to the checkout so he didn't suspect anything, Alfred dumped the basket on the counter, and smiled apologetically at the girl who was going to have to laser off all those tags and fold them all up again (Alfred had been cramming them into the basket like they were illegal substances), checking behind him again just to check that Arthur wasn't giving him the evils.

The girl behind the counter returned his look, and appeared to be looking straight over his shoulder she folded and lasered and bagged the clothes, tapping in each price at inhuman speed.

"Sorry for all this," Alfred waved his hand at the clothes with a sheepish expression. "I didn't expect to be buying this much, but drastic crises call for drastic measures."

She giggled and tapped at the cash machine, still loading clothes into the second bag. "These all for your cute boyfriend over there?" She pointed, and Alfred almost dreaded turning around to see who she was indicating. He wasn't surprised to see her pointing at Arthur, and he was ready with a denial.

"Oh, he's not my boyfriend," He all but blustered, taking the bags and digging his wallet out of his pocket at the same time. "Just someone with an awful fashion sense."

"Not your boyfriend?" The girl took his notes, did that professional-looking thing there they hold the notes up to the light to check they weren't fake, and handed him the numerous bags. "Every time you looked away from him, he stopped moving and just stared at you," She held her hand over her mouth and giggled again. "Don't tell him I told you, will you?"

"I won't," Alfred laughed forcedly and shrugged. "I just hope he puts these clothes on instead of all that beige."

"He's quite cute, you know, in all that beige."

Alfred just laughed, feeling a little awkward, and turned on his heel and took off towards Arthur. The Brit was still absently musing over clothes when Alfred came and tapped at the boy's shoulder.

Arthur spun around and looked as if he was about to say something incredibly rude, but, seeing Alfred, he just grumbled. "Find anything that wouldn't make me look like a total stuck up prick?"

Holding the bags out, Alfred was preparing to watch Arthur's eyes bursting out of his skull at his generosity. "How about these?"

Instead of crying with joy, or at least giving Alfred a little smile to show he had possible feelings of gratitude, Arthur just looked away with a little sniff. Needless to say, Alfred was disappointed. He had spent a considerable amount of money on all those clothes, and he at least wanted Arthur to try and force some kind of thankfulness.

"That was kind of you," Arthur mumbled, not paying attention to the bags.

"It's only to stop you wearing those jumpers, you know."

Arthur scowled. "I've had these for years, you know."

He smiled. "That's why you need to stop wearing them."

Arthur wouldn't stop glaring at Alfred all the way through town.

"I'm not so bad, see?" Alfred grinned, brandishing his milkshake sometime after they had escaped the shopping torture, and after Alfred had dragged Arthur into a café for a drink.

Arthur appeared to smile, but it was quelled as he took a cautious sip of his own milkshake. "In your dreams, sunshine."

And in his dreams Arthur would be.

_Thanks guys for reading, and if you drop a little review in that little box a little author will cry little tears of little happiness she has in her little life._

_Few more little updates next week, then we get on to the serious stuff :D_


	7. Chapter 7

_FIFTEEN REVIEWS FOR THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER ARE YOU KIDDING ME GUYS THAT WAS AMAZING THANK YOU SO MUCH!_

_I don't think saying thank you for every chapter would be enough to express how grateful I am, you're all fabulous._

_Also, little reminder that this is a break for me from writing about prison camps and people locked up in houses and I'm purely writing this for comedic (I hope!) reasons so if there is something you're not happy with because it's __**really **__not correct or factual I apologise but THE POINT OF THIS FIC IS TO MESS AROUND WITH IDEAS I'M SORRY IF THIS STORY SEEMS FALSE OR CHEESY BUT THAT'S THE WAY IT'S GONNA BE_

_Thanks for the crit though :) I'll remember that for future thingies._

_Lots of new stuff in this chapter as always, and Alfred gets a promotion woo!_

_If it wouldn't be a problem, please check out my other USUK fanfiction which is really not like this one, so yeah…_

_Also can I just say neither me nor Alfred are good with the feelings so that's probably why it seems really cruel I'm sorry I just can't people :(_

_You're all super great, and I'll update on Friday as usual!_

_-Tzitzimime_

Mondays.

_Why._

Alfred thought it was bad that he had to turf himself out of bed at eight in the morning to feed himself and haul himself to work was bad enough. Alfred thought whisking plates in and out of the dishwasher like a Frisbee champion and frying eggs in the pans he'd bothered to clean was a task to be taken seriously. Mornings were not his thing, they had never been particularly beneficial in his experience, especially because school always started at a ridiculous hour, and because his mother was relentless when it came to trying to wake him up.

The fact that he was woken up at _six in the morning _was just too much.

He sat up, rubbing his eyes and groaning, to see a fully dressed Arthur leaving the room and making for the kitchen. His uniform was on, including his shoes, and his hair looked brushed to full flatness as usual. Alfred was surprised that his school called for uniform as his hadn't, but he guessed it was just a disciplinary thing they had to keep the kids in order. However, he was more surprised that he was now _awake _and that he was going to have to start doing _stuff _at _six in the fucking morning._

Compared to Arthur, Alfred was a visual mess. His eyes were half open and bleary; his mouth slack as he tried to get a conscious grip and actually himself up, and his hair was scruffier than usual and stuck up around his head like a straw coloured halo. Grumbling and rubbing his eyes again, he reached for the bedside table and jammed his glasses onto his face before standing up and staggering into the kitchen. It was a little too early in the morning for him to remember that he was only wearing pyjama bottoms and that the other person living with him didn't much like it when he was less than properly clothed.

"Morning sport," He grunted as he met Arthur in the kitchen, reaching for the coffee maker and trying to turn it on. Arthur was nursing something in one of the pans on the cooker, and Alfred was praying that it was eggs. "Sleep well?"

Arthur clearly wasn't up to pleasantries at this hour. "I closed my eyes and remained inert for eight hours, so I suppose that counts as sleeping well."

Alfred just smiled vacantly and nodded, hoping that whatever Arthur was cooking would be done soon. However, as the smell of whatever was in the pan reached his nostrils, his stomach was starting to get a different idea of what they were going to have for breakfast.

"Slow down, Dr Lecter, what are you cooking in there?" The acrid smell was enough to wake him up, and he abandoned his attempts at making himself some coffee to peer over Arthur's shoulder at the shapeless mass that was making distressing hissing noise in the pan. "What _is _that? _People_?"

He continued poking industriously at the… _thing_… and didn't look up at Alfred. "Sausage," he said blankly, and Alfred spotted an empty packet by the sink. "Want some?"

_Oh dear._

"Uh, Arthur," Alfred tried to put it in a way that would send Arthur into a puce-coloured rage again. "Are you sure they're meant to be that colour?"

The 'sausages', which were slowly turning a ripe shade of black, hissed at him in return. Whatever Arthur was doing to them, Alfred was pretty sure they didn't like it.

"Of course," His self-assurance was almost pitiful now, and Alfred could see him struggle to think of something to say. They were burnt, and he knew it, but was determined not to say anything in case Alfred started laughing. But, right now, Alfred was more concerned about the volatility of those carbonised masses than about how funny this situation was. "It's what it said on the instructions."

Alfred snatched the packet from the side of the sink, and read through it carefully. Theoretically, what Arthur was doing was right. So why did it look like he'd found a recipe from the Satanic Cookbook?

"Arthur, uh, what temperature is that pan on?" He was still frowning at those sausages, trying to work out how many he had put in there.

Arthur pointed to the dial, which was twisted up to its highest setting, and Alfred paled.

_Ah._

"Are you sure that's a good temperature to cook them on?" Alfred asked cautiously, now watching Arthur try to unstick the things from the bottom of the pan with his spatula.

"Sure," Arthur's confidence was worryingly strong. "They'll cook faster like this."

"Arthur," Alfred reached around him before he could move and turned the dial down to almost zero. "That's not how you cook sausages."

A scowl was sent in his direction, but Arthur was now occupied with turfing the sausages out onto a plate and trying to scrape the remnants off the bottom of the pan. He appeared to sniff. "Yes it is."

"I'd really love to agree with you pal, but you've gotta keep them on a low heat so they cook all the way through, not just on the outside."

"They cook on the inside like this as well," Arthur protested, still scraping chunks of sausage and carbon onto his plate. "Just they cook faster."

Alfred eyed the pile of charred meat now piled onto a plate. "Arthur, chum, I really don't think you should be eating that."

"Pardon?"

"Arthur, I honestly wouldn't eat that if I were you."

"Well it's a good thing you're not me and that you're not having any of this." Arthur snapped in return, grabbing a fork from the side and sticking it into what looked like a carbonised resident of Pompeii with a satisfied expression.

As Alfred stared with a horrified expression at Arthur, the boy dug his fork into the pile of… stuff… and put it into his mouth.

Alfred waited with a roiling stomach for Arthur to drop down onto the floor and start convulsing.

There was a long silence, before there was a mighty crunching noise and Arthur's face twisted into a smile worryingly more convincing than his rare and genuine ones.

"S'good." He muttered through his teeth, chewing ferociously and almost pausing to consider his options before he swallowed it and gave Alfred a superior look. "They taste just fine."

As Arthur appeared to be digging in to the sausages with obvious gusto and no apparent morbid side effects, Alfred didn't object and just waited for the Brit to start coughing up black bits somewhere in the near future. Instead of trying to take the plate away from him and force some less burnt toast down his throat, Alfred just decided to let him be. He was concerned that if this awful cooking behaviour persisted he would have to start denying Arthur access to the kitchen, but for now he just decided to leave him to his own devices. From past experience with cooking incidents similar to this one, Alfred had gained enough knowledge to work out when something was cooked and when something wasn't, and although those sausages looked like something one might feed to lions at a zoo, they didn't look like they were liable to affect Arthur in any way.

"Fine," Alfred got himself some toast, spreading it with a thick layer of Nutella as per usual, and crammed it into his mouth as fast as he could. "What time does your bus arrive?"

Arthur blinked as he swallowed (with some notable difficulty) a mouthful of his breakfast. "Bus?" As always, Arthur knew the answer to that question, and just had to wait for Alfred to deliver it to his doorstep.

"Isn't that how you got to school?" Alfred finished his toast in record speed, dumped his plate in the sink, and leaned against the counter, looking straight at Arthur. If the boy had noticed his lack of upper body clothing and had been as flustered about it as he had the day before, he wasn't showing it at all. Neither was he showing any emotion at all, really. He just ate those sausages with alarming crunching noises like he ate what was basically coal for breakfast every morning, and that this was perfectly normal behaviour.

"I used to walk," Arthur too finished his breakfast, though with a little more of a sour expression than Alfred had finished his, and it had been apparent that, despite his wonderful acting, Arthur had not much enjoyed those sausages.

Sighing as he realised what was going to become of him now, Alfred slouched over to the doorway and leaned against it in a bored fashion. "If I give you some money and pack your lunch, will you take the bus and give your ol' pal Alfie an extra two hours in bed?"

Arthur smirked. "Only if I get to cook my own breakfast every day."

Recoiling with the thought of a kitchen covered in blackened Hot Pockets, Alfred shook his head. "That's not gonna happen, not in a million years," He paused, trying to find a way out of this situation. "Can't you just walk?"

"Can't you just stop being a twelve year old and take responsibility?" Arthur placed his retorts carefully as one places stones in that funny curling sport, waiting for the final shot to be played. "It's not that far a drive, plus I believe you work on weekdays?"

Alfred like to pretend that his job was more of a hobby than anything else, and that he really did enjoy serving sleazy old guys and blushing eleven year olds, but that would be too many lies for one day.

He pulled a face. "Hero's doesn't open until eleven, and I need my beauty sleep, y'know."

Arthur snorted. "Evidently you've been having some sleepless nights lately."

Not wanting to set off another argument in which he would obviously and theatrically lose, Alfred just went back into the bedroom and decided to get dressed. When they had got home after their grand shopping venture, Alfred had been expecting Arthur to at least try his clothes on and get a good look at himself in the mirror just to check he didn't look like a complete idiot. Instead, while Alfred had whipped up some instant noodles, Arthur had spent a good twenty minutes folding his clothes up and putting them away in the chest of drawers, and had not touched them since. Even now, dressed in his _school uniform_, he looked entirely uninterested in the amount of money Alfred had spent trying to make him look a little more presentable for those wishing to take an interest in him. Arthur disappeared into the bathroom, possibly to brush all those burnt bits of sausage out of his teeth, and Alfred forced himself to get dressed.

Faded t-shirt, jacket, jeans. He was done- his hair was messy and his eyes still a little unfocused as he had forgotten to make himself that coffee, but he looked just fine. While Arthur was bustling around in the living room packing his bag and whatnot, Alfred began to pace around the bedroom, trying to think of ways he could stop Arthur's awful cooking habit. Cordon off the kitchen? No, that was what you did with small children and troublesome Chihuahuas, not how you treated a 'young adult', as his mother said. Takeaways for breakfast? Definitely not, if Alfred kept up the immense totals of pizza he consumed in a week, he would be able to build Arthur a separate house out of pizza boxes. Learn to cook? Highly unlikely that he would carry that out, but it was worth a shot. If he downloaded some recipes off the internet and followed them to the last comma, he would possibly have a chance at cooking something a little more edible than Arthur's attempt at breakfast.

"Are you done powdering your nose?" Arthur called from the other room, evidently impatient because Alfred really wasn't hurrying himself in any way. If Arthur wanted a ride to school, Arthur would get his ride to school when Alfred was done doing whatever he was doing. Which, at the moment, wasn't much at all, so he really had no excuse he could procure to try and make the Brit wait a little longer. "It's half seven; we need to go."

Groaning and complaining under his breath, Alfred reappeared in the living room and slipped his sneakers on, not bothering with his bomber jacket or some other article of clothing that he knew Arthur completely detested. Arthur was stood by the door carrying his bag with an impatient expression, tapping his finger against the wall as Alfred gave him a sheepish look.

He clapped his hands and grabbed his keys from their not-so-safe home between the cushions on the sofa and joined Arthur by the door, staring at it like he really didn't want to do this. To be honest, it wasn't that difficult a chore, and Alfred could do with being early for work for once, so, in a way that really wasn't something he wanted, he was benefitting from this.

"Right then," He gave Arthur one last look; taking in the neat tie, the buttoned up blazer, immaculate trousers that Alfred certainly hadn't ironed those creases into, and an expression of plain boredom. "Let's assemble the cavalry, shall we?"

"Please don't tell me you're the general," Arthur muttered. "Because then we've got no hope in surviving."

Despite the fact that Alfred was trying to be a good Samaritan and stop being so much of a dick towards Arthur, he always played along with the jokes and the games, and never did he just shoot what Arthur said down in a blank, bland way. Sure, Arthur had just called Alfred incompetent for the second time that morning, but at least it was in a way that was marginally acceptant of Alfred's words, so it didn't matter as much.

They descended the numerous stairs of the apartment block (as if they were in a sitcom, the lift was closed), without speaking, and Arthur seemed to ignore Alfred pointedly until they reached the car, where a little smile crept its way across his face as he spoke.

"Be this our chariot?" He said, with the tiniest hint of humour in his voice. "For I do not think she will be capable of carrying us into battle."

Alfred raised his fist and pulled a goofy face. "Fear not, fair squire, she is stronger than she looks!"

Getting into the car, Arthur balanced his bag on his knees and snorted. "Hah, I doubt that."

"At least you're not complaining that I called you a squire instead of a valiant knight." Alfred started the engine, already feeling less reluctant about doing this. Arthur seemed to be in good spirits despite his quips that Alfred's Ford, and he was determined to make sure the good mood lasted.

Arthur did his seatbelt and stared calmly out of the window, appearing to lose the venom he had injected into his words previously. "I don't see myself as a knight." He stated. "Wouldn't want to carry around all that armour."

Pulling out of the car park, Alfred bashed in the postcode of Arthur's school into the satnav. It wasn't a long drive, only about five minutes or so, but made ample time for some good ol' Arthur and Alfred Conversation Time.

Inclining his head towards Arthur as they stopped off at the first of many traffic lights, Alfred frowned. "You seem happy this morning."

"Do I not seem happy every morning?" Arthur leaned back in his seat, not looking at Alfred. "Maybe I should make it more obvious, possibly grin like a loon at anything remotely funny like you seem to enjoy doing."

"Okay, besides that, you just seem a little more relaxed than you did yesterday," Alfred turned a corner, almost debating on turning the radio on, but decided that Arthur's opening up to him was a little more important than this week's number one. "Is it because of school?"

Arthur gave him a dry look. "My school is the hiding place for social outcasts and general mishmash of people going nowhere, I doubt I'm twisted enough to enjoy that."

"Sure, so what's more tedious; school or shopping with me?"

He laughed at that. "Shopping with you."

Four minutes to go, then no Arthur for the rest of the day. "Didn't you used to shop for clothes when you were younger?"

"As the children's home was run by middle aged women who claimed they knew exactly what wouldn't make me look like a sad little abuse case, I was often subjected to wearing clothes that had been bought for me."

Alfred could see how the decisions of said overly confident middle aged women had influenced Arthur's awful dress sense, and he hid a smile. "At least you'll be glad to wear something that doesn't look like an Addams Family prop, right?"

Arthur rested his arm along the edge of the window, and let out a long breath. "Right."

They descended into silence for the following three minutes, and as Alfred pulled up outside the school along with the many other parents possibly more eager than him to turf their child out into that awfully drab looking building.

Alfred, despite his claims of insensitivity, was starting to worry.

When he had gone to school, the building he had sat and ignored teachers in had been the most modern of its time; all glass and metal, and with sports facilities every thick-skulled mathematical failure could use to their required extent. The teachers had been kind but strict, and Alfred had had his fair share of merits as well as detention, especially from that one drama teacher who insisted he had promise for the future and that he _really _should consider a career in Broadway. There had been bullies, smokers, the general wrongdoers who really weren't going to make it past the supermarket counter in terms of careers, but none of them Alfred had ever had any incidents with. No-one had fought, well, except this one German lad who had insisted in arm wrestling tournaments to prove his superiority over everyone else, and, save his final exam grades, Alfred's time there had been pretty good.

This school looked like the opposite.

The gates were half open, black and unwelcoming to boot, and the buildings themselves were squat and square, the windows blank rectangles cut to minimum requirement. Whereas Alfred's school had appeared stylish in its minimalism, this collection of structures looked dull and lifeless. A couple of kids had already turned up and were loitering by these gates; probably just the resident emos and nerds desperate to get in before they were preyed on by any of the older kids, and apart from that everything looked dead.

After a moment of staring in open-mouthed shock at the place Arthur sat down in and learned all those fancy words, Alfred turned to him with a confused expression.

"Please tell me that's a Muggle-proof cover and that what I'm really looking at it a three thousand year old cathedral made of gold and diamonds the size of my head." He didn't want to admit it, but he wasn't all that comfortable with the idea of Arthur walking through those morbid gates for a day of what looked like military training.

"I'd love to disagree with you," That appeared to be Arthur's favourite thing to say to Alfred. "But that's it."

Alfred continued to stare at him with a baffled expression. "Are you sure you're okay going in there?" A kid with various piercings and a murderous-looking haircut slouched past where the car was parked. "It looked dangerous."

Getting out of the car and slinging his bag over one shoulder, Arthur looked completely chilled about entering what looked like some sort of prison compound. "Don't be ridiculous, I'll be fine, just remember to pick me up at quarter to four. You can remember that, right?"

Alfred wound down the window and poked his head out to reply to Arthur. "Sure thing, kiddo. Please don't get stabbed or anything, and remember that the kid with the ear spacers is probably a serial killer."

"It's not that bad, no-one cares enough to try and steal my lunch money or anything." Arthur looked uncomfortable about talking to Alfred through the window as he was getting a couple of stares, and Alfred was surprised that he was still hanging around.

_Lunch money._

Alfred frowned, panicked now that he'd forgotten one of the most basic of fundamentals a kid needed for school. "You do have money for lunch, right?"

The Brit waved his arms unenthusiastically. "Free school meals for those hopeless orphans too poor to buy their own burgers."

"I can always make you something if you like; I'm awful at lasagne but I make a mean BLT." Alfred offered with a grin, relieved that Arthur did actually have a means of sustaining himself through the day, and that Alfred wasn't going to be penalised for forgetting about his lunch.

Arthur gave him a blank look, decided talking to Alfred wasn't worth the funny looks, and turned around without so much as a 'bye', swallowed up by the coalescing crowd of students that was rapidly gathering in and around the school grounds. A couple of the kids gave him curious looks, but Alfred was out and away from that place before any of them could get their graffiti cans out or something, and was speeding away to his work.

Watching Arthur's back retreat into that mass of scary punk kids had been unnerving, and Alfred hadn't much liked the way he had just disappeared like he neither mattered nor existed. Despite everything, especially considering how sure of himself Arthur always looked, Alfred was worried about him. Suppose one of those kids started acting nasty, and Arthur got seriously hurt with a pen knife or something? None of the teachers looked like they would give a shit about him, and Arthur was certainly not the kind of person to just say when they were being pushed around by another kid. No matter what Arthur tried to appear to be, no matter how much he tried to be strong, Alfred knew that kid wouldn't last two minutes if pitted against another one of those kids in a fight.

Alfred was shocked at how much this distressed him.

The thought of Arthur coming home with bruises was harrowing enough. The fact that Arthur would have to go to that place _every day_ was even more harrowing. The notion that Arthur may not be safe in that place was worrying, because it was the only place where Alfred couldn't act as a guardian to him. He couldn't sit there in the back of the classroom and make sure no cocky little snot decided to sock him in the face, he couldn't make sure Arthur was at least acting like his normal self. He had no idea what went on behind those awful walls, and he was just going to have to wait for an opportunity to ask Arthur what it was like there without the Brit showering him with lies. He knew he could seem outwardly cold and selfish towards the boy, but Alfred F. Jones was in no way shallow. He was understanding of his duties to make sure Arthur made it through the rest of his teenage years without so much as a broken nail, and he was willing that, if it meant Arthur would be safer, to take more of an interest in his school life and how he got on at school. If that meant an awkward conversation with a teacher, so be it. If that meant he would have to attend at parent's evening instead of his mother, so be it. He was going to make sure Arthur Kirkland didn't end up working in some café like he was, and he was going to stop acting like he didn't care, because that kid had some unresolved feelings for him that he needed to tread very carefully around if he didn't want to hurt either Arthur or himself.

He supposed, with distaste, that what the counsellor had said may not have been entirely true. She seemed just as interested in Alfred's behaviours as she was in Arthur's, and the way she so easily let go of the fact that Arthur loved him was concerning. She must understand that dating a minor wasn't really in Alfred's best interests, or Arthur's for that matter, and that they really needed to start being friends before anything else. As he stopped at the lights again, tapping his fingers on the wheel, he thought long and hard about the situation with Arthur. A professional woman had told him this kid had romantic feelings towards him, he didn't know how on earth she had managed to work that out, but he was determined to find himself a little more proof before he said or did anything stupid.

First of all, he needed to start talking to Arthur more. Arguing over breakfast items (despite how awful Arthur obviously was at cooking) was not a good way to start a morning, and despite how they had had some sort of chit chat on the way to Arthur's school, Alfred knew quite well that they needed to be talking about more serious things. Alfred needed to get into the habit of asking Arthur how his school day was, and if he needed any help with his homework. He was going to stop being the older bossy boots who really had no clue about how to deal with Arthur, and he was going to try his absolute hardest to make sure that kid was as happy as he could be.

This little revelation took some time, and Alfred stopped a little too long at the lights for the comfort of the cars lining up behind him. The honking of horns drove him out of his daze, and he hit the gas as he drove through town, through the high street, to the café in which he worked. Seeing Arthur walk through those gates had reminded him of when he had first walked through those café doors to see if they needed any fresh young recruits. He just hoped that he would see Arthur walking through the gates of Harvard instead of serving drinks to the town's cheapskates.

Quite surprised by his revelation, he drove a little slower as, unusually; he needed more time to think. Neither of them had got off on the right foot, he supposed, and now he was learning more about Arthur in irregular chunks rather than the gentle flow friendship may have allowed, he was getting a little more concerned about their relationship. He wanted Arthur to at least see him as a friend, as someone he could trust, and that maybe they would stop inadvertently insulting each other if they both calmed down a treat and started to get along as normal human beings. Though Arthur wasn't _normal, _and what he had been through was harrowing and traumatic to say the very least, Alfred was going to try his best to stop Arthur from being so callous. And, who knows, with a good attitude towards other human beings and some compassion, Arthur could find himself a nice girlfriend. Or boyfriend, if he decided to go that way. He doubted Arthur had such a deep love for him that he would be impossible to peel away from him- the boy would find himself some other person to read classic texts with and cook awful food for. Though he was going to support Arthur in any way he could as a guardian, he really wasn't in any position to do what Arthur's subconscious and that strange counsellor were telling him to do.

Sighing as he pulled in to the staff car park, cutting the engine and leaning back in his seat with a thoughtful expression, Alfred had a revelation similar to that of several days prior. Arthur didn't need some big boy who would cook him his dinner and buy him clothes, he didn't want a best-buddy-type guy who would take him to the zoo and to baseball games. He needed a strong support to lean on even if he didn't want to, he needed a guardian who wasn't such a total ass he couldn't tell him anything, however bad. Arthur Kirkland didn't need a repeat of the past, no matter what Alfred thought about it or what his subconscious wanted him to do.

Rubbing his eyes under his glasses, he laughed quietly to himself. "I gotta be his goddamn hero," He muttered, digging for his identity badge but not really feeling enthusiastic about working today. "But I guess it's for the best."


End file.
